ROTTEN ARNE AE AOE) 2 
epee ee enn ay : 
aaa eee — 








». o “oe 
AL 
i >. 


Meat wit Pi 
iv 
ihe 


y 








8 Agen ne 








THE PRACTICE OF THE 
PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 





THE PRACTICE OF THE 
PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 






BY f 
WILLIAM P. KING 


- NASHVILLE, TENN, 
COKESBURY PRESS 
1926 


Coprrricut, 1926 
BY 
LAMAR & BARTON 


Printed in the United States of America 


DEDICATION 


To the Social Service Commission of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
and to the Companion of the Par- 
sonage, whose life is a daily 
expression of the ideals 
set forth herein 


oy 
wy) 
nat 


iy 
, ey 





FOREWORD 


In response to the invitation of Dr. Comer M. 
Woodward of Emory University, the Chairman 
of the Social Service Commission of our Church, 
I gave four lectures at the Lake Junaluska As- 
sembly before a group of representative men 
and women of the Church. This volume is pub- 
lished at the urgent solicitation of this group. 
The four lectures are elaborated into four chap-— 
ters, and six other chapters are added with the 
same general application. ; 

On account of this addition, it is only just to 
say that this group is not to be held accountable 
for some ideas advanced with which certain 
readers may not be in harmony. I wish to 
express my satisfaction at the reception of the 
four spoken lectures. I am confident that the 
motive of the select company who urged the pub- 
lication of this volume is altogether different 
from that of Job, when he said, ‘‘Oh that mine 
adversary had written a book.’’ And now that 
the book is written, I do not think that I should 
be held under any obligation to read it. It is 
nothing but fair that others should do this. 
There should be a division of labor. 


For their assistance in preparing the manu- 
vii 


Vill FOREWORD 


script and in removing some grammatical blem- — 
ishes and in making other improvements in the 
language, an expression of gratitude is due Rev. 
Homer Thompson, Rev. G. L. King, Dr. Comer 
M. Woodward; and Dr. H. J. Pearce, Jr., of 
Brenau College. The readers will recognize my 
indebtedness, which I gratefully acknowledge, to 
several leading authors. I have not given the 
names of books from which quotations are 
taken, since my discussion is not so distinctively 
controversial that the readers would wish to 


verify the quotations. 
THe AUTHOR. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


RU EOSOR I it ed cen r a Mire cal de Mean take Ren aE 
PREC SISELESE UE STN OTTO i fee'y? oe ok te ae uae Ne Xi 
CHAPTER 

I. FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS .... 1 


Il. THe Praqmatic TEst oF CHRISTIAN Doc- 
PTA Phin chi oy cic tiie ah MRE Mes eek ys iwi autre Oy 


Ill. Tue FAuuAcy oF THE FALSE ALTERNATIVE 53 


Ve Es APOLDEN: ROUTE ice ral ey sel ilg ARS 15 
V. THE GoLpEN RuuE (Concluded) . . . 105 
VI. OrtrHopoxy AND OBEDIENCE .. . . 126 


VII. OrtHopoxy AND OBEDIENCE (Concluded) . 147 
REL RPe EM OCEADMOOLIDABITY) 66205, 20S aki WN 2 
PA Ee INDUS CRUSADE i. WV ieie lh oe ey el ek oO 
X. THe New Crusape (Concluded) . . . 219 


SY \ippaalhs) 


Ap 





INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


In the present volume Rev. W. P. King has 
done a very important piece of work. He has 
placed before us considerations which help us 
_to get and keep our bearings. In the past decade 
the thought world seems to have been almost 
completely torn from moorings and anchorages 
which we had considered unbreakable. To many 
a storm-tossed mind everything seems to be 
afloat and adrift. The reader of this book soon 
discerns that, bad as our plight seems, the essen- 
tials of thought and faith have not suffered ship- 
wreck. In the realms of the social attempt to ap- 
ply the Gospel to present-day conditions espe- 
cially, it is possible to chart a course not only 
toward safety, but toward a fairer kingdom of 
humanity than any we have ever known. 

It is difficult for most of us to be prophetic | 
and discriminating at one and the same moment. 
If we become prophetic, we yield to the glory 
of the vision before us and cease to consider 
closely the actual obstacles in our path; and if 
we proceed with intellectual carefulness we are 
likely to lose sight of the grandeurs of the sky. 
The author seems to me to have kept his eyes 


fixed on a noble ideal and at the same time to 
4] 


xii INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


have maintained touch with the actual and con- 
erete. He has not loosened his grasp on his 
fundamentals because of the false antitheses 
which so sadly perplex the untrained thinker. 


Francis J. McConne tu, 
Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 


THE PROGRAM OF CHRISTIANITY 


‘‘ And he came to Nazareth, where he had been 
brought up; and he entered, as his custom was, 
into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood 
up to read. And there was delivered unto him 
the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened 
the book, and found the place where it was written : 


The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; 
He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, 
And recovering of sight to the blind, 
To set at liberty them that are bruised, 
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.’’ 
—Luke 4316-19. 





THE PRACTICE OF 
THE PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


CHAPTER I 
FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS 
I 


In an effort to reach the great simplicities of 
the gospel of Jesus Christ we must steer our way 
between different types of extremists. 

There are the radicals and intellectual snobs 
who sharpen the intellect and cut out the heart. 

They are fragmentary men like Wordsworth’s 

‘One that would peep and botanize 
Upon his mother’s grave, 
One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling 
Nor form nor feeling, great nor small, 


A reasoning, self-sufficing thing, 
An intellectual all in all.’’ 


With this type of man the analytic spirit has 
become a frenzy, and the love of dissection a 
morbid passion. 

The radical, of whatever kind, who ignores 


the contribution of the past, the large element 
1 


2 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


of truth in the great creeds of the past, will 
himself be ignored by the future. The man who — 
fails to connect with the past misses connection 
with the future. We have representatives of 
this type of mind who turn all thought into a 
universal negation. 

‘“Woe worth the knowledge and bookish lore 

Which makes men mummies, 


Weighs out every grain of that which was miraculous before, 
And sneers the heart down with the scoffing brain.’’ 


The opposite type is represented by Funda- 
mentalists who, with all their limitations and 
defects, are in possession of some qualities 
which call forth our admiration. 

Even the intolerance of Fundamentalists re- 
sults from the faith that religion is the one thing 
of supreme value, and they believe it is being 
taken away from them. My difference is with 
the leaders of Fundamentalism, who breathe out 
‘‘threatenings and slaughter,’’ who become ex- 
pert in making an appeal to popular passion and 
prejudice, and who become in reality the enemies 
of the faith as they encumber it with impossible 
conceptions. 

The hurtful error of Fundamentalism is in 
magnifying the secondary and incidental to a 
place of importance along with the primary and 
fundamental. 

The Fundamentalists are bound by the utterly 
senseless principle, ‘‘False in one, false in all,’ — 


FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS 3 


which, if we were compelled to accept, would 
utterly destroy the very foundation of the faith. 

A wise teacher gave to a student in religious 
perplexity over the authorship of the Penta- 
teuch the counsel, ‘‘Accept first of all Jesus 
Christ as your Lord and Master, and when you - 
get to heaven, you can find out about the Penta- 
teuch.”’ 

I knew a brother who thought the Christian 
faith would be gone if the whale did not swallow 
Jonah, and yet he was opposed to foreign mis- 
sions. He missed the one fact above all facts 
that the book of Jonah is intended to teach, and 
that is the universal compassion of God that 
could not be limited to the Jewish race. He had 
a perfect right to believe that the whale swal- 
lowed Jonah; but he had no right to allow the 
whale to swallow not only Jonah, and the repu- 
tation of Jonah, but the one lesson of the Book 
of Jonah. 

Such Biblical trifling recalls the incident of 
some years ago when a university professor 
stated that Leviticus was mistaken in saying 
that the hare chewed the cud. The theological 
uproar was followed by the sage advice: 


‘The bishops all have sworn to shed their blood 
To prove ’tis true the hare doth chew the cud; 
O, bishops, doctors, divines, beware, 

Weak is the faith that hangs upon a ‘hair.’ ”’ 


4 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


These distinct and contrasted types of ex- | 
tremists must be persistently opposed. 

The ‘‘New Thought,’’ so called, finds expres- 
sion in a superstitious supernaturalism. It also 
finds expression in the elimination of all that is 
extrahuman. 

Dr. S. P. Cadman writes: ‘‘Among the rival- 
ries which compete with the Christian pulpit 
to-day must be numbered those excursions of 
unlicensed imagination into the unseen known as 
Theosophy, Christian Science, Mental Healing, 
and Spiritualism. They are largely the fruits 
of that revulsion against an overweening mate- 
rialism which began to assert itself during the 
later half of the nineteenth century. The ex- 
ponents of these cults have been quick to detect 
the longings after the invisible and mysterious, 
which were discounted even in the Church by 
the prejudice of liberal clergymen against the 
Supernatural. Traffickers in its wonders played 
skillfully upon those longings, which mere rea- 
son cannot satisfy nor unbelief quench. Super- 
stition is the worm that exudes from the grave 
of a buried faith.’’ 

Katharine Tynan dwells on the morbidness of 
cultured people who have abandoned Christian- 
ity, and remarks that she has seen the ‘‘emanci- 
pated’’ daughter of a bishop swoon because she 
caught sight of the new moon through glass. 

If the Church would save our generation from 


FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS 5 


the folly and loss resulting from false religious 
teaching, which more often than not is the more 
dangerous because of the half truths it embodies, 
she must repair herself to timely instruction in 
order to overcome error and fanaticism by a 
faith luminous with the light divine. 

There are those who ignore the past. ‘‘And I 
heard a voice behind me saying.’’ That is the 
voice of yesterday, and we must hear what the 
voice says. Dr. J. H. Jowett writes: ‘‘There is 
a prevalent teaching known as the ‘New 
Thought.’ I know the literature of this new 
teaching, and I say that the teaching gives no 
adequate place of sovereignty to Jesus Christ 
our Lord. He is not accorded that unique and 
solitary preeminence which he claims. He is a 
neglected factor and is left entirely out of the 
reckoning. And because he is absent other 
things are missing. I find no mention of guilt. 
Rarely do I stumble upon the fact of sin. In 
the New Thought there is no confession of sin, 
no sob of penitence, no plea for forgiveness, no 
leaning upon mercy. The atonement is an obso- 
lete device, the pardonable expedient of a primi- 
tive day. It is a destructive heresy.’’ 

The true prophet, in raising his hearers to 
new and greater levels of truth and insight, 
strives to understand the truth already revealed 
and saturates himself with those immense reali- 
ties by which men in past ages have lived and 


6 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


conquered. Only in this way can we go forward 
to new experiences and new discoveries of the 
truth. 

To ignore the inheritance of the faith of our 
fathers is to impoverish ourselves and our chil- 
dren. To miss connection with the past is to 
miss connection with the need of the present 
and future. If we forget the rich achievements 
of our fathers, we shall in turn be forgotten by 
our children. There is a continuity of religious 
thought, and a new faith has no soil in which to 
grow. The false prophet has an itching desire 
for novelty, for the sake of novelty. His idea of 
paradise is to be in the limelight of a public sen- 
sation. The dullness of the commonplace palls 
upon him, even commonplace morals. His chief 
objection to the Ten Commandments is that they 
are old. 

We can very readily see through the thinness 
of the pert, shallow type of thinkers who break 
with the past. But the man who casts every- 
thing in the mold of the past and breaks with the 
present is also a false prophet or following the 
leadership of false prophets. 

Jesus draws a picture of this kind of false 
prophet, too vivid ever to be forgotten: ‘‘Woe 
unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! be- 
cause ye build the tombs of the prophets, and 
garnish the sepulchers of the righteous and say, 
‘If we had been in the days of our fathers, we 


FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS 7 


would not have been partakers with them in the 
blood of the prophets.’ ... Wherefore, be- 
hold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, 
and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and 
crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in 
your synagogues, and persecute them from city 
to city.’’ There has been no lapse in the line of 
false prophets who raise stones to the prophets 
of the past, and throw stones at the prophets of 
the present. 

The indiscriminating idolatry of the past is a 
very easy and cheap affair. It has sufficient 
truth mixed with error to give it carrying power. 
This type of mind suffers from farsightedness ; 
or, to use a big word, presbyopia. Greatness 
can only be seen when it is far off in time. If 
a man has been dead a sufficient number of 
years, he becomes a saint; and if he has been 
dead a still longer time, he becomes infallible. 
But the passing centuries have no sanctifying 
effect on a man or a generation. I make no 
defense of the egotism in the humor of Mark 
Twain, who represents himself as weeping at 
the tomb of Adam because Adam did not live 
in his day and live to see him. But I do not pro- 
pose to weep because I did not live in Adam’s 
day. Or if I should weep, it would be tears of 
joy. The righteous and heroic spirits of the past 
are secure in their achievement, and we have no 
time to waste in ‘‘garnishing their sepulchers.’’ 


8 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


We shall receive profit more from the spirit — 
than from the letter of their message. We shall 
be true to our fathers as they were to their 
fathers, as we make use of some different meth- 
ods to meet the new need and the new opportuni- 
ties of our new day. 

Some of the most consummate demagogues 
that it has ever been my displeasure to know 
were men who glorified the political leaders and 
the political traditions of a century and more 
ago. They deal out demagogiec drivel. Both 
political and ecclesiastical demagogues are fond 
of conjuring with the names of illustrious states- 
men and churchmen of the bygone centuries. 
They know that God has spoken unto the fathers 
by the prophets, but they expect no fresh mes- 
sage from God for the need of to-day. They 
would fasten the present as a slave to the char- 
iot wheels of the past. 

Jeremiah came into conflict with false prophets 
of this type, who took as their motto certain 
words of Isaiah. They won popularity by ortho- 
dox phrases and traditional doctrines. They 
laid hold of Isaiah’s words concerning the invio- 
lability of Jerusalem, and the words which were 
true as spoken by Isaiah became false. Aceord- 
ing to Jeremiah one unfailing characteristic of 
the false prophet was in getting his message out 
of the traditions of the past. 

Jeremiah was not a repetition nor imitation 


FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS 9 


of Isaiah. He was the embodiment of God’s 
will and truth for the generation in which he 
lived. 

The arch heresy, according to Jesus himself, 
is not in breaking with certain traditions of the 
past, but in breaking with God’s call to meet 
the duties and opportunities of the present. 


‘God fulfills himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom corrupt the world.’’ 


Marcus Dods, in his letters, writes: ‘‘I do not 
envy those who have to fight the battles of Chris- 
tianity in the twentieth century. Yes, perhaps 
I do, but it will be a stiff fight. Your very fidel- 
ity to the faith will demand courage to think 
new thoughts, to champion new theories, to pro- 
claim new truths, to live new ideals, to walk 
with the Master through new Gethsemanes to 
new Calvaries. The modern prophet with spiri- 
tual weapons must needs fight against the mighty 
forces of reaction and radicalism. He must 
needs fight again the fight of Paul in beating off 
the Judaizers with their narrowness on the one 
hand, and the Gnostics with their false liberality 
and philosophical looseness on the other. Every 
day you face a new world. Every day some ap- 
pendix of functionless creed is removed. Some 
old tradition goes to the garret; some outworn 
fabric of dogma is burned to ashes; new scien- 
tific discoveries demand new alignments of the 


10 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


faith; new attacks of the enemy demand new 


weapons of defense; new results of science chal- 
lenge new adjustments; new social cleavages 
and groups challenge new translations of the 
gospel into social values.’’ 

There is the advocacy of a narrow sectional 
and provincial policy. 

The advocacy of a policy which promises no 
constructive effort, which proclaims national 
aloofness and isolation is against the whole mes- 
sage and spirit of the Christian faith. The old 
prophets possessed a broad ecatholicity of spirit. 
The modern prophet must rise to the spirit of 
universality. 

The world has only advanced through many 
gerowing-pains. When we say that false prophets 
hinder this progress, we do not mean that they 
are false in that they are depraved in heart, but 
false in a mistaken judgment. 

In the order of the evolution of society it has 


‘always been difficult to make the transition from | 


one stage to another. There came a time when 
the discussion arose in the family as to whether 
or not it would remain isolated or join with other 
families into a clan as a matter of protection. 
There was violent opposition. It was argued 
that it had never been done before, that the 
unity of the family would be destroyed. 

Then, when the idea was advanced that the 


clans should combine into a tribe as a safeguard - 


SES te ae Es Te Pn Cee 


FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS 11 


against the attacks of unfriendly clans, the same 
argument was advanced that it had never been 
done before, and that it would involve the clan 
in endless wars. 

So when tribes came bopetlions in a state and 
the states into a nation of federated states, there 
was raised the alarm of dangerous Mo vhien 
the destruction of independence and the estab- 
lishing of a super-government. 

As we have reached the stage of development 
when the whole world is so interrelated as to re- 
quire a new order of international agreement, 
we need not wonder that the cry of the obstruc- 
tionist should be heard in the land. 

Kiphng has given us the strong lines: 


‘*He knows not England, who only England knows; 
He serves not America best, who only America serves.’’ 


A belated mind is fatal to large usefulness. 


‘New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good 
uncouth ; 
They must upward still and onward who would keep abreast 
of truth.’’ 


There are those who reply to such language 
with much heat and insist that we do not live ina 
new world, but in the same old world. 

We live in both. We live in an old world with 
its old sin, with its old human nature, with its 
old world and old flesh and old devil, with its old 
gospel, with its old salvation. 


12 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


We live in a new world with its new scientific 


knowledge, and new discoveries and new inven- 
tions, with its new civilization, with its new 
problems, with its new duties, with its new com- 
plex relationships, with its new international ad- 
justments to be made, and with its new world 
solidarity. 

We are to shake off the shackles of the bond- 
age of traditionalism. 

There is the necessity of holding on to the 
good of the past and going on to the better of the 
future. 

An old man of my acquaintance accepted all 
innovations that made for his comfort, such as 
automobiles and electric lights, but stoutly re- 
sisted any change in the fatalism of his theology 
and in his antagonism to Sunday schools and 
world evangelization. 

Dr. Josiah Strong wrote some years ago: 
‘‘History is strewn with the ruins wrought by 
political and religious revolutions rendered in- 
evitable by ultraconservatives who could not or 
would not reconcile themselves to the world’s 
progress, and who restrained and prevented a 
natural adjustment of institutions to the cease- 
less changes of a living and growing civiliza- 
tion.’’ 

Bondage to traditionalism is the death of all 
progress of every kind. If we are only true 
to the faith as we accept all the beliefs of our 


Ee ee a 


FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS 13 


fathers, then it must follow that our fathers were 
not true to the faith, because very fortunately 
they did not accept all the beliefs of their 
fathers. In fact, a slavish imitation of the past 
is a denial of the faith. 

We are willing to allow our ancestors to have 
some voice and some vote, but we are not willing 
that they should stuff the ballot box. 

Sidney Smith, in the ‘‘Fallacies of Anti-Re- 
formers,’’ has made some observations, which 
may be given in brief, and not as a direct quo- 
tation. 

What shall be said of our wise ancestors and 
the wisdom of antiquity? With individuals, the 
oldest has, of course, the most experience, but 
with generations the reverse is true, and our 
ancestors who come first are the young people 
and have the least experience. There has been 
added to this experience the experience of many 
centuries. We can claim against our ancestors 
that we are older than they are in point of the 
accumulation of experience. 

There are so-called irrevocable laws. There 
is the effort of the dead hand of the past to 
mold the future. 

The sovereign power at any one period can 
only form a blind guess at the measure which 
may be necessary at any future period. By the 
principle of immutable law, the government is 
transferred from those who are necessarily the 


14 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


best judges of what they want to others who can 
know little or nothing about the matter. 

The sixteenth century decides for the seven- 
teenth, and the seventeenth makes laws for the 
eighteenth, and the eighteenth dictates to the 
nineteenth, and the nineteenth states infallibili- 
ties for the twentieth. The traditionalists admit 
that it was wise for every century to make some 
change from the preceding except our own. 
Everything has been fixed for us. Those who 
have least experience make irrevocable laws for 
those who have the most experience. To sup- 
pose that there is anything which a whole nation 
cannot do which is essential for their welfare 
and happiness because another generation long 
ago dead and gone said it must not be done is 
mere nonsense. 

There is the ery of no innovation. To say that 
all things new are bad is to say that all old things 
were bad in their commencement. For of all the 
old things ever seen or heard of, there is not 
one that was not once new. Whatever is now 
established was once an innovation. To abuse 
the new is therefore to abuse the old, since the 
old was once new. Because a certain thing was 
good in its day is no convincing reason that it is 
good in our day. The world is shaken, not only 
that old things may pass away, but also that 
new things may appear. 





FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS 15 


IT 


There are certain transitional and transform- 
ing forces which have borne down on the life 
and thought of our age with an irresistible im- 
pact, and which have made change and readjust- 
ment inevitable. 

1. There is the new science, with its knowledge 
of nature, its power over nature, and the scien- 
tific method of thought. There has been a mar- 
velous increase in knowledge, and a marvelous 
application of scientific knowledge to the practi- 
cal uses of the world. But of still vaster impor- 
tance is the scientific method of thought, which 
begins with observation of facts in the construc- 
tion of a theory, rather than dogmatically as- 
suming a theory and endeavoring to make the 
facts fit the theory. 

2. The scientific spirit compelled philosophy 
to revise her a priori methods of thought. Phi- 
losophy does not deny the possibility of knowl- 
edge, but it recognizes the conditions and limi- 
tations of knowledge. An increasing confidence 
is placed in the verdict of experience, and in the 
pragmatic test of the workability of a theory as 
affording evidence of the truthfulness of the 
theory. 

3. The Democratic spirit has a wide and radi- 
cal application. At bottom it is a question of 
authority. There is the changing attitude to- 


16 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


ward all authority, whether sacred or secular. 
It is seen in the awakening of nations from the 
sleep of centuries. It is seen in the arousing of 
the individual to the authority of his own con- 
sciousness in the formation of his political and 
religious belief. With this spirit the individual 
man refuses to be obsessed by the external au- 
thority of creed-makers, and rejects that which 
does not appeal to his own reason and experi- 
ence. 

4. Historical criticism constitutes a part of the 
general advance in knowledge, and results in a 
change of theological thought. It was inevitable 
that the methods which the great historians were 
applying with such brilliant results to the his- 
tories and early literatures of the ancient world 
should be applied also to the Sacred Writings. 

5. The study of Comparative Religion throws 
light on many portions of the Sacred Scriptures. 

We gain a reliable knowledge of the Scrip- 
tures only as we learn something of the neigh- 
boring nations, their ideas, customs, and reli- 
gions. Stories of the fall, the flood, the giving 
of the law, all have their parallels in other na- 
tions. There is a vast difference in spiritual 
quality and moral purpose. 

The study of the ancient monuments with the 
ancient codes, such as the code of Hammurabi, 
2250 B. C., with its points of resemblance to the 


Mosaic law, is a refutation of the customary 


Ee a ee 


FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS 17 


idea of the absolute originality of the contents 
of the Old Testament. The supernatural is to 
be found in the superiority of the Old Testa- 
ment laws and narratives. 

6. There has been the development of what 
we may call the intellectual conscience or love 
for the truth. We are convinced that ‘‘we can- 
not please the God of truth with the unclean 
sacrifice of a falsehood,’’ even though it be 
offered in the name of religion. As much as 
modern science may have contributed to this 
‘‘nassion for veracity,’’ yet the Christian draws 
his first and abiding love for the truth from Him 
who said, ‘‘To this end was I born, and for this 
cause came I into the world, that I should bear 
witness unto the truth.’’ 

7. There is the new ethical awakening. The 
moral conscience which was dull to the cruelty 
and injustice of industrial relationships has be- 
come keenly sensitive. This new ethical insight 
has sifted out as chaff some of the former and 
even current conceptions of God. The doctrine 
of divine decrees by which God foreordained a 
fixed number of men to eternal damnation is 
now becoming impossible. Certain theories of 
the atonement which made God willing to accept 
the punishment of the innocent instead of the 
guilty are discarded since they make God less 
good than a good man. 

The famous protest of John Stuart Mill was: 


18 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 
‘‘T will call no being good who is not what I 


mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow 


‘men; and if such a being can sentence me to hell 
for not so calling him, to hell I will go.’’ 

The protest of John Wesley was not less em- 
phatic against the old Calvinism: ‘*Your God is 
my devil.’’ 

We are told of a committee who were exam- 
ining young candidates for the ministry when 
one stern member of the committee asked: ‘‘ Are 
you willing to be damned for the glory of God?’’ 
One candidate replied: ‘‘Well, no, not exactly; 
but I am willing that the committee should be.”’ 

8. There is a new social conscience as the re- 
sult of a new social spirit and the ethical awaken- 
ing. This social conscience is altering political 
theories, changing industrial methods, and re- 
moving our social indifference. Many practices 
are now considered sinful which a generation 


ago were regarded as innocent. We hear the 


wail that conscience is dying out. The human 
conscience was never so highly developed and 
sensitive as it is to-day. If our consciences do 
not reprove us as much as formerly about our 
inbred sin, they reprove us much more concern- 
ing our antisocial sins. 

We are getting farther and farther away 
from the situation described in the incident of 
the deacon who was arrested by a sanitary in- 


spector for selling unclean milk, and who under : 


Ee _— 


FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS 19 


the sudden provocation used profane language. 
His Church disciplined him for his profanity, 
but regarded as too trivial for notice his vio- 
lation of sanitary laws which would possibly re- 
sult in the deaths of scores of infants. 

9. The new Science of Psychology, with much 
of the materialistic bias which belongs to some 
of the psychologists, has had a sifting effect on 
the ideas and doctrines of men. The subliminal 
or subconscious realm of the mind must be reck- 
oned with, but we resolutely reject the theory 
that the inspiration of prophets and saints is 
merely the ‘‘uprush’’ from an unconscious or 
racial memory. The fact is that the prophetic 
revealers of God’s truth were pioneers who 
brought a message to men that all their personal 
consciousness, and all the heritage of the past, 
could not have reached. In many instances the 
message was so new that the race had never 
heard it before. 

While we may be called upon by psychology 
to discriminate and attribute to the region of 
subconsciousness some of the ideas which appear 
to us, yet we must acknowledge also the ‘‘down- 
rush from the superconscious.’’ Bishop Gore 
has said: ‘‘Something has occurred for which 
only the experience of the prophets and the wit- 
ness of Christ can account, and without which 
the moral treasures of human nature would be 
vastly impoverished.’’ 


20 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


III 


One can readily understand how these trans- 
forming and disturbing forces have made neces- 
sary a restatement of the eternal essentials and 
vital certainties of the gospel. 

The apostolic age was free in its attitude to- 
ward the burden of traditions, and it was clear 
and fearless in the separation of rudiments from 
the vital elements of the faith. It is as truly the 
mission of the Christian teacher to-day to dis- 
criminate between the essential and nonessential 
as it was the mission of the apostles in the first 
century, even though it seems to be a perilous 
undertaking. 

Of the danger of making concessions at any 
point we have been warned by the well-worn 
illustration of the traveler, pursued by hungry 
wolves, who endeavored to conciliate them by 
morsels, until he himself made the last savory 
morsel. There is a strong suspicion of any ef- 
fort to distinguish the permanent and transient 
elements of our belief. St. Paul, however, dis- 
tinguishes between the commandments of the 
Lord and his own judgment. 

It is an easy matter to spin out pious plati- 
tudes; it is more difficult and infinitely better to 
accept facts with an honest and reverent spirit. 
Any fact is a thought of God and a sacred thing, 


FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS 21 


whether found on the page of nature or of 
scripture. 

There are certain advanced thinkers, so called, 
who would eliminate, one by one, even the essen- 
tials. But it requires neither advancement nor 
thought to be destructive. That is merely wan- 
ton trifling. The men who hold this attitude to- 
ward the Christian revelation are guided not by 
the evidence of historical research and investiga- 
tion, but solely by the prejudices and presuppo- 
sitions of their own minds. 

Dr. Alexander Maclaren, who certainly has no 
leaning toward destructive criticism, has said: 
‘¢A clear recognition between the divine revela- 
tion and the vessels in which it is contained, be- 
tween Christ and creed, between churches and 
forms of worship, on the one hand, and the ever- 
lasting word of God spoken by His Son, on the 
other, is needful especially in times of such sift- 
ing and unsettlement as the present. It will 
save us from an obstinate conservatism which 
might read its fate in the decline and disappear- 
ance of traditional Judaism and Jewish Chris- 
tianity.”’ 

The slow paralysis that has crept over the 
faith of many is a result of the confusion of the 
vital and incidental matters of the faith. To 
declare the uncertain things as if they had been 
revealed, is almost as unfortunate as to declare 
the revealed things as if they were uncertain; 


22 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


and it is very confusing, producing either intel- 
lectual slavery or anarchy. 

There are some considerations that will help 
us in the separation of the accidental from the 
universal elements of our creed. 

We are to recognize that Christ’s authorita- 
tive teaching is in the realm of the religious and 
spiritual. To extend the authority of Jesus 
beyond the spiritual domain into regions scienti- 
fic, historical, and literary is to destroy his au- 
thority, under the pretense of making it abso- 
lute. He does not attempt to give any authorita- 
tive word either on the science of Biblical criti- 
cism or on the physical sciences. 

Dr. G. T. Ladd writes: ‘‘There is no reason 
why a Christian student of the Bible should hesi- 
tate to look calmly on the imperfect and pass- 
ing element of the Old Testament ethics and 
religion; or why he should shrink from making 
the distinctions necessary to separate these ele- 
ments from the perfect and eternal Christian 
truth. Christ has showed him how to make these 
distinctions. In making them he is not setting 
up his judgment against that of the holy men of 
old; he is only using the very truth which the 
infallible teacher himself revealed in order to 
appreciate its vast superiority to that taught by 
the teachers who lived in the inferior and pre- 
paratory stages.’’ 

This determining principle will enable us to 


FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS 23 


make the distinction between certitudes and un- 
verifiable dogma and speculation. . We know 
that man is a sinner with the possibility of salva- 
tion; but we do not know the precise method of 
his origin or all about his history, and these 
problems we must leave to science. We know 
that Jesus Christ brought life and immortality 
to light, but we have no detailed picture of the 
conditions of life in the unseen world. 

It is impossible to convict John Wesley of 
Fundamentalism. His refusal to stickle for the 
dogma is a thorn in the flesh of Methodist Fun-_ 
damentalists. ‘‘One circumstance is quite pe- 
culiar to the people called Methodists; that is 
the terms upon which any person may be ad- 
mitted into their society. They do not impose in 
order to their admission any opinions what- 
ever. Let them hold particular or general re- 
demption, absolute or conditional decrees; let 
them be Churchmen or Dissenters, Presbyterians 
or Independents, it is no obstacle. Let them 
choose one mode of baptism or another, it is no 
bar to their admission. A Presbyterian may be 
a Presbyterian still; the Independent or Ana- 
baptist use his own mode of worship. So may 
the Quaker, and none will contend with him 
about it. They think and let think. One condi- 
tion and one only is required—a real desire to 
save their souls. Where this is, it is enough; 
they desire no more; they lay stress on nothing 


24 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


else; they ask only, ‘Is thy heart herein as my 
heart? If it be, give me thy hand.’ ”’ 

There are essential and nonessential, perma- 
nent and transient elements in religious thought 
and belief. We have magnified the transient 
and passing into an equality with the permanent 
and abiding. There is much nervous anxiety 
over the things that pass away. As we fasten 
our faith on the surface matters, disturbances 
are bound to come. How can you sing, ‘‘How 
firm a foundation,’’ if your faith foundation is 
liable to be shaken any morning by a new figure 
on the uncertain age of the world? I am not so 
much concerned about the age of the world as 
about my own age. I am not so much concerned 
about lines of savage ancestry that le behind 
me as about whether the savagery of my own 
nature is being overcome. Our age has not 
lost its faith in religion. Man will be religious 
as long as he is man. Christianity holds within 
her bosom indestructible elements. There are 
some things which can never be shaken. 

Modern Fundamentalism is a misnomer, since 
its peculiar features are not fundamental. 

We should be content to find in the Bible an 
inspired authority in the realm of life and faith. 
In Jesus Christ we have a picture of the possi- 
bility of man and a revelation of the character 
of God. Aside from all petty questioning, we 
find certainty concerning man’s relationship to 


FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS 29 


man, man’s relationship to God, and God’s rela- 
tionship to man. In the Bible we find the assur- 
ance that man’s immortal aspirations shall be 
satisfied. 

In the Bibles given to soldiers and sailors in 
the late war were inscribed the words of Wood- 
row Wilson, ‘‘When you have read the Bible 
you will know that it is the word of God because 
you have found it the key to your own heart, 
your own happiness, and your own duty.’’ 

Bishop Haygood was far ahead of his day in 
this discriminating statement: ‘‘Does Moses 
say, ‘I, Moses, son of Amram and Jochebed, 
wrote all that is in these five books?’ If so, 
where does he say it? Does Isaiah say, ‘I, Isaiah, 
son of Amoz, wrote every one of these sixty-six 
chapters?’ If so, where does he say it? It is 
Christianity and not a theory of inspiration nor 
the authorship of certain books in the Bible that 
we are fighting for. In what least particular 
would a dozen pens in the Pentateuch or twice a 
dozen in Isaiah affect Christianity? There in 
the evangelists is Jesus Christ. He is Chris- 
tianity.’’ 

The universal truths are self-evidencing and 
form a perfect answer to the questionings of the 
human spirit. The principles and doctrines of 
Jesus bear the marks of ultimateness and uni- 
versality. 

It is impossible to enclose the vital gospel 


26 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


within a system of cold abstract definitions. You 
might as well attempt to gather all the perfume 
of the springtime flowers into a bottle. You 
might as well attempt to catch all the beauty of 
all the landscapes in a kodak. But there are 
some truths that are basic and fundamental: 

1. God is our Father, with the necessary pos- 
tulate of human hrotherhnod 

2. There is the fact of Jesus Christ: His in- 
carnation, atonement, resurrection, and ascen- 
sion. 

3. There is the presence and power of the 
Holy Spirit. 

4, Man is the child of God and immortal. 

5. There is the fact of the kingdom of God, 
spiritual and universal in its nature. 

All of these mean a right relationship between 
man and God and between man and man. 

We are to keep the central message distinct 
and emphatic. This is our safety and strength. 
Dr. W. N. Clarke makes this forceful utterance 
and discrimination: ‘‘We do not keep our cen- 
tral message distinct in its glory as we ought to 
do; but we bind up with it all our views of the 
Bible, of doctrine, and even of Church polity. 
All incidental and secondary matters ought to 
be presented as incidental and secondary, and 
the great elemental truths ought to be kept in 
their solitary glory and tenderness. Even the 
Bible itself is not the end of faith, but only the 


FINDING THE FUNDAMENTALS eth 


means to an end. The ultimate object of our 
faith is Jesus Christ, and God the Father whom 
he reveals to the world. The puzzled hearer 
may exclaim, ‘What do we know of God except 
through the Bible?’ Yes, and what do we know 
of the stars except through the telescope? And 
yet the telescope is not the star, and the only 
use of the telescope is that the star may be re- 
vealed. The Bible is the telescope and God is 
the star, the sun.’’ 

Many of our human notions are at the point 
of vanishing and ought to vanish, but the truths 
of eternal value abide forever. They are for- 
ever beyond the reach of any sort of criticism, 
reverent or irreverent. They are deeply and 
eternally imbedded both in the heart of God and 
in the spirit of man. The precious diamond of 
God’s revelation has often changed its setting 
in human thought; it may change it again, but 
the diamond will always sparkle with untar- 
nished splendor. The background of our faith 
may change its coloring. It has changed it in 
the past; but the essential, vital faith in the sav- 
ing love of God as manifested in Jesus Christ 
will remain so long as there are human need 
and divine compassion. These fundamentals of 
the Christian faith constitute our inner line of 
defense from which we can never be driven. 

In human warfare it has often happened that 
an army that has retreated from some position 


28 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


at last found itself in an inner circle of defense 
that was invincible. The German assault on 
Verdun for two long months was the most ter- 
rific conflict in the annals of battle. Outer lines 
were broken through, but the main line held, the 
inner circle of defense was impregnable. The 
words of General Petain, ‘‘They shall not pass,”’ 
thrilled the heart and nerved the arm of every 
French soldier. In the last desperate assault 
of the Crown Prince, 40,000 German soldiers 
were slaughtered in a hopeless effort to pass the 
French curtain of fire. The main line held. 

In the conflict for the faith some outer lines 
of human systems and man-made creeds have 
been broken through; and while much ammuni- 
tion has been wasted by theologians in defend- 
ing indefensible positions, there is an inner cita- 
del of the faith from which no long-range enemy 
guns can ever drive us. There is the unbreakable 
line which no terrific onslaught can ever bend. 

These vital truths—God our Father, Jesus 
Christ our Saviour, the presence of the Holy 
Spirit, man an immortal child of God, and the 
reign of Jesus Christ, all held in the warm clasp 
of a living experience—are beyond the reach of 
all the deadly projectiles and poisonous gases 
of the enemies of our faith. ‘‘There is the re- 
moving of those things that are shaken as of 
things that are made, that those things that can- 
not be shaken may remain.’’ 


CHAPTER IT 
THE PRAGMATIC TEST OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 


In order to get a running start some seven 
other tests of the essential verities of the faith 
will be briefly considered before discussing the 
pragmatic test. 

Very much is being said as to what constitutes 
the fundamentals. The writer lays claim to be- 
ing a fundamentalist if you do not begin the 
word with a capital letter. There is a group 
who make the boast of being one hundred per 
cent orthodox. Another group boasts of being 
one hundred per cent American. 

An Irishman recently landed goes them one 
better and says: ‘‘I’m a two hundred per cent 
American; I hate everybody.’’ 

The religious Pharisees can never be accused 
of despising themselves. They are somewhat 
like the old brother in Georgia who always in- 
sisted on using the wrong preposition in the 
lines of the familiar hymn and sang with a voice 
above all the others: 


‘<Sweet prospects, sweet birds, and sweet flowers 
Have all lost their sweetness but me.’’ 
29 


30 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


With one voice we have a group among us — 
who sing, ‘‘Have all lost their sweetness but 
me.”’ 

Their sweetness, however, is not very evident 
in the vitriolic attacks which they make on their 
theological opponents. 

The faith is really endangered when we so link 
what is essential and indubitable with what is 
unessential and doubtful, that the two in our 
thoughts stand or fall together. 

There is the proneness of the Church to con- 
fuse the essential and incidental matters. We 
have magnified the transient and passing into an 
equality with the permanent and abiding. The 
mind of the Church should be saved from con- 
fusion. 

With the Christian minister, next to the obli- 
gation of saving the lost is the obligation of en- 
lightening the saved. 


I 


The first test is the determinative revelation 
of Jesus Christ. The revelation of God in Jesus 
Christ must ever be the central sun of all our 
thought. Premillennialists who contend for 
what they term fundamentalism can find encour- 
agement for the physical reign of Christ on 
earth for a thousand years from the teaching of 
Jesus only by the most strained interpretation. 
The same is true of their literalistic notions of 


THE PRAGMATIC TEST 31 


inspiration. Their favorite literature is the 
apocalyptic portions of the Scripture. 

All the religious ideas of men and every part 
of the Bible itself must meet the test of Christ’s 
life and teaching and character. Of all other 
teachers it may be said: 


‘They are but broken lights of Thee, 
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.?? 


Bishop A. G. Haygood wrote: ‘‘Whatever in 
the Old Testament writings, no matter who holds 
the pens, is in harmony with Jesus Christ and 
his teaching is true. If any man should find in 
any of them anything that contradicts him or 
antagonizes his teaching, it is false. Jesus 
Christ is the supreme test of truth, in word, in 
deed, in motive, in life.’’ 


IT 


There is the subjective test of human experi- 
ence. The essential nature of every doctrine 
may be tested by experience. The crowning evi- 
dence of a Christian idea is its verification in ex- 
perience. All the vital truths of the Christian 
faith are verified in human experience. I know 
by experience that the Son of Man has power 
on earth to forgive sin, but it would be very 
foolish to say that I know by experience what 
the apostolic mode of water baptism was. I 
know by experience God as my Father and the 


32 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


the blessedness of fellowship with him, but I 
cannot know by experience who wrote the books 
of the Bible. 


‘<Tf e’er, when faith had fallen asleep, 
I heard a voice, ‘Believe no more,’ 
And heard an ever-breaking shore 

That tumbled in the godless deep, 


A warmth within the breast would melt 
The freezing reason’s colder part, 
And, like a man in wrath, the heart 

Stood up and answered, ‘I have felt.’ 


Whoso has felt the spirit of the highest 
Cannot confuse nor doubt him nor deny, 

Yea, with our voice, ‘O world, though thou deniest, 
Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.’ ’’ 


n8E 


A further test of the essentials is the common 
experience of all who have access to the facts. 
This is both a corroboration of the experience 
of the individual and the correction of the abnor- 
malities of individual subjectivity. ‘‘It is to 
comprehend with all the saints.’’ L. F. Stearns 
writes: ‘‘Multitudes in all ages have tried the 
gospel method, and have found peace in beliey- 
ing. The new life, fellowship with the Father, 
and the forgiveness of sins have become reali- 
ties to them. The keenest and most cultivated 
intellects have found satisfaction in this realm of © 
knowledge. Multitudes have given their lives 


THE PRAGMATIC TEST 33 


in testimony of their conviction that these sacred 
facts are what Christianity claims.’’ 


IV 


There is the test of a historical foundation. 
The Christian faith rests not on the mists that 
arise out of the fancy of the subjective mind. 
The myths and marvels that gather about the 
eradle of the non-Christian religions are with- 
out historical evidence. The apostles of the 
Christian faith speak after this manner: ‘‘That 
which was from the beginning, which we have 
heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which 
we have looked upon, and our hands have 
handled, of the Word of life.’”’ St. Paul, in 1 
Corinthians xv. 1-8, records the evidence of the 
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which 
occurred only twenty-five or twenty-six years 
before. The greater part of five hundred eye- 
witnesses of his resurrection were living. St. 
Paul was converted two or three years after the 
crucifixion of Jesus. The historical events on 
which the gospel is based were not hidden in a 
dim and remote past. Belief in the Fatherhood 
of God and the love of God will persist because 
the Son of God lived with humanity and died 
for humanity. Christianity is not only a spirit- 
ual but a historical religion. 


34 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Vv 


A test of an essential religious element is that 
it enters into a harmonious relation with the 
whole body of assured knowledge. The idea of 
one God has finally won out over the notion of 
many gods, because it is in accord with the 
scientific knowledge of the unity of the universe. 
The former orthodox notion of the age of the 
world is out of harmony with the established 
facts of science and cannot survive. Various 
superstitions have become impossible. It is one 
glory of our religion rightly understood and in- 
terpreted that it can live in the modern world 
with the most accurate knowledge and the most 
searching investigation, and not come into the 
slightest contradiction with any proved fact of 
modern knowledge. The Christian faith can 
never go out of date or get behind the times. 
Romanes elaborates at some length on the time- 
_ less quality of the words of Christ. No lapse 
of time can ever antiquate his teachings. Many 
of our conceptions of religion are destined for 
the scrapheap, but essential Christianity can 
never be discredited by a growing knowledge of 
the universe. 


VI 


There is the verdict of the racial and human 
instinct. Religion from the beginning has been 


a ns a 


THE PRAGMATIC TEST 39 


an indestructible possession of the human race. 
There has been the belief in some sort of a God, 
however crude. The instinct of immortality is 
traced back to the glacial period. Every race or 
tribe has believed in a ghost world. The ethical 
instinct has co-existed with these other beliefs. 
There has been in the most ignorant savages 
some imperfect sense of right and wrong and 
the freedom of man. So you have the great doc- 
trines of God, immortality and freedom, testi- 
fied to by this old and enduring instinct of the 
race. 

Is it possible that the instincts in the lower 
realm of man’s personality and the instincts of 
the animals are true, while the instincts in the 
higher realm of man’s personality have simply 
mocked man with a delusion when they have 
called him to an unseen spiritual universe? Is 
the instinct of the bird and bee true and this 
instinct of the human heart false? 


**T go to prove my soul. 
I see my way as birds their trackless way. 
I shall arrive; what time, what circuit first, 
I ask not; but unless God send his hail 
Or blinding fireballs, sleet, or stifling snow, 
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive; 
He guides me and the bird. In his good time.’’ 


The expression of the spiritual instincts and 
aspirations of mankind, while manifesting itself 
in varied forms, at the same time is marked by 


36 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


many features that are alike. Much discussion 
has taken place concerning the likeness of cer- 
tain elements of the Christian faith to the mys- 
tery religions of Paganism. The liberal school 
has been disposed to use these resemblances to 
discredit the Christian gospel as if it had bor- 
rowed its doctrines and sacraments from pagan- 
ism. Christian apologists have been too prone 
to ignore the points of resemblance and claim 
that paganism in its later forms borrowed from 
the Christian faith. As a general proposition 
neither of these suppositions is correct. Human 
life with the same spiritual hunger and the same 
aspirations, reaching out after God, though 
widely separated by space and time, will express 
its search for the divine in ways that are very 
much alike. That which the unbeliever uses as 
an objection is an argument for the Christian 
faith. It is not something foreign to the age- 
long groping of the races of men, but holds be- 
fore men in the highest form that which they 
have been stumbling toward, but have not been 
able to reach in their own unaided strength and 
wisdom. 

Jesus Christ carries the evidence of being the 
Son of Man and the Son of God because He 
gathers up in his own person all the truer in- 
stincts of the groping mind and aspiring heart 
of humanity through the climbing centuries. His 
preeminence is that He does not stand out in any 


THE PRAGMATIC TEST 37 


startling innovation as some mistaken defenders 
would claim. We are not surprised that ancient 
sages and saints have left on record sayings 
that are very much like many words of Jesus. 


‘¢ Though truths in manhood darkly join, 
Deep-seated in our mystic frame, 
We yield all blessing to the name 

Of him that made them current coin.’’ 


Vil 


The doctrines must be true which arise in re- 
sponse to a real human need. For the physical 
need of man, there is the outside material world 
which responds to his need. What life begins 
to need, what it feels from within that it must 
have, is eventually supplied. 


‘‘But fresh and green from the rotting roots 
Of primal forests the young growth shoots; 
From the death of the old, the new proceeds, 
And the life of truth from the rot of creeds; 
On the ladder of God which upward leads 
The steps of progress are human needs.’’ 


I used this argument on a friend when I was 
away on a vacation trip, and when he had com- 
mitted himself to it I told him that I needed ten 
dollars. He replied that there were exceptions 
to all rules. 

The need of the infant finds its response in 
the love of the mother. As the life of man ex- 


38 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


pands from infancy the need is met. The grow- 
ing intellect finds a world of laws and literature. 
The social need is met by playmates and com- 
panions. The craving for beauty is met by the 
sunset sky, the majestic mountains, and all the 
beauties of nature and art. As love is awakened, 
a fair face emerges from the throng, fairer to 
us than all the rest. 3 
As religious want arises, it is met by personal 
fellowship with God. As the earthly life finishes 
its course, we are confident that man’s conscious 
need of immortality will be met. The need is 
evidence of the God who satisfies the need. Is 
the spiritual need of man, his deepest, highest 
need for guidance and forgiveness, related to a 
mere illusion? Does the deepest need of man 
constitute the one dark exception? It is unrea- 
sonable to suppose that through the ages all 
life, from the lowest up to man in his physical 
need, has been related to an external satisfying 
reality, while the highest spiritual need of man 
in laying hold of a spiritual world has related 
itself to an unreality. This is to do violence to 
all common sense and reason. The Bible is se- 
cure for all the future both against the attack 
of its foes and the false defense of its friends, 
because it contains the revelation of the kind of 
God humanity needs. There is a skeptical ob- 
jection to religion because it arises out of a sense 
of need. But what stronger argument could you 


THE PRAGMATIC TEST 39 


have? A kind of world and order of things in 
which there is a response to the need of human- 
ity is what we would expect of a God who is our 
Creator and Father. When we come into pos- 
session of that which satisfies our deepest need, 
our spiritual need, we have laid hold of ‘‘the 
things that cannot be shaken, the things that 
remain.’’ 


Vitl 


The final test is the pragmatic test or work- 
ing value of a belief. This test of working values 
is illustrated in the individual character: ‘‘By 
their fruits ye shall know them.’’ A faith which 
enables men to overcome the world and victor- 
iously to bear the burden and heat of life’s day 
thereby makes strong confirmation of its truth- 
fulness. It should be plain to us that nothing is 
fundamental in religion that brings to us no 
moral motive power. The faith which produces 
the best type of life and character is to be re- 
garded as true. Every doctrine which makes 
men bitter and contentious, which prevents the 
fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffer- 
ing, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, 
and temperance, is by that fact proclaimed to be 
an imperfect or perverted conception of the 
truth. This method will not result in a vague, 
uncertain faith. It is only a clear, vital faith 


40 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


which will enable us to practice the principles 
of Jesus. 

A Baptist brother told me that in a meeting 
of an Association he observed that the arm of 
an old preacher was swollen from shoulder to 
finger tips. He asked: ‘‘Why, brother, what is 
the trouble with your arm?’’ The old brother 
replied: ‘‘Well, it was this way: I went to a 
barbecue in the country, and coming home late 
in the afternoon I thought a pear would help my 
digestion. I went down to the orchard as it was 
getting dark and reached up for a pear and it 
was a hornet’s nest.’’ 

The old brother’s belief was not workable and 
came very near costing him his life. We can- 
not say with our Christian Science friends, that 
it was the result of an error of the mortal mind, 
since if the hornet’s nest had been empty there © 
would have been the same error of the mortal 
mind, but the arm would not have been swollen. 
We are not to underestimate the value of a true 
faith. 

The test of workability is illustrated in the 
whole sphere of public life. In a world which 
God has made we may expect the essential 
truths to stand the test of workability. Christ- 
lieb, a noted philosopher, said: ‘‘In a world 
created by a God who is good, that which intro- 
duces disorder and confusion is convicted of be- 
ing false.’? So the question is raised, What is 


THE PRAGMATIC TEST 41 


the practical value of a belief which claims to be 
true? Does it work well in life and lead to satis- 
factory results? The truth is the only practical 
thing in the world. I make no claim to any ex- 
tensive knowledge of Pragmatism as a philoso- 
phy, but I accept without reserve the practical 
test. 

In a world which the devil made, evil and error 
would fit in and would be natural for that kind 
of a world. Purity, truthfulness, faith, and love 
in the devil’s world would be against nature. 

The absurd contradiction is that while we live 
in a world which God made, yet the laws of the 
devil are the only practical laws, and the laws 
of God are only a form of poetical language. 
There is a Supreme Ruler, but his laws and 
truths will not work in his world. ‘‘Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself’’ is visionary, and 
the Golden Rule is a figure of speech. The Ser- 
mon on the Mount is an iridescent dream. The 
Ten Commandments are not for the rough and 
tumble of everyday life. ‘‘It is more blessed to 
give than to receive’’ is a beautiful sentiment, 
but is not intended for practice. So men have 
tried to run God’s world with the devil’s laws. 

What have been the results in the social and 
economic world of assuming that greed and self- 
ishness are the only workable rules? In sucha 
world dissatisfaction and disorder are a neces- 
sity. With a million or a thousand million wills 


42 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


working for their own selfish desires nothing but 
unrest and conflict are possible. The gulf which 
separates the employed from the employing 
classes is so deep and wide that it appears al- 
most impossible to bridge the chasm. Unless 
unselfishness shall take the place of greed and 
cutthroat competition, the world’s last and great- 
est war will be that of capital and labor. Is it 
not about time to inquire as to whether the laws 
of the devil are really practical laws, whether 
the maxim, ‘‘Every man for himself and the 
devil take the hindermost,’’ is going to work 
well in our world? 

Frederick Robertson is far enough removed 
from us in time to add force to his prophetic 
words: ‘‘Brethren, that which is built on selfish- 
ness cannot stand. The system of personal self- 
interest must be shivered into atoms. There- 
fore, we who have observed the ways of God in 
the past are waiting in quiet but awful expecta- 
tion until he shall confound this system as he 
has confounded those which have gone before. 
And it may be effected by convulsions more ter- 
rible and more bloody than the world has yet 
seen. While men are talking of peace and the 
great progress of civilization there is heard in 
the distance the noise of armies gathering rank 
upon rank, east and west, north and south, and 
rolling toward us the crashing thunders of uni- 
versal way.’’ 


THE PRAGMATIC TEST 43 


Take, for example, impurity. The law of 
purity and holiness is esteemed too high for 
human realization. Novelists glorify vice and 
unchastity. Imagination transfigures it and 
places a glamour about it. 

There belongs to it the fascinating allurement 
and almost irresistible power that comes from 
the blending of passion and mystery. There is 
to-day the revel of sensuality. But the artificial 
fascination is removed when the rose is stricken 
from the cheeks of beauty and the blister of 
shame takes its place. The triangular affair be- 
comes a red triangle at the sharp crack of a 
pistol. As impurity works in society the law 
courts are filled with divorce suits, innocent 
children are subjected to the unspeakable pathos 
of alienated parents, and if generally practiced 
it would mean the destruction of the home and 
the wreck of civilization. One out of every seven 
marriages in the United States ends in a divorce 
court. In 1870 we had twenty-eight divorces 
for every one hundred thousand of the popula- 
tion; in 1922 the figures increased to one hun- 
dred and thirty-four for every one hundred 
thousand. A large number of these divorces are 
the result of marital infidelity. If you would 
know how impurity is working, you must reckon 
with the heavy toll of disease and suffering and 
the destruction of home life. 

How does the spirit of revenge work? It is 


44 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


not a workable rule between individuals. As it © 


widens the circle, it would transform society 
into a cage of wild beasts. Europe waded 
through seas of blood, destroying millions of 
of lives and billions of property, to discover that 
not the strife of nations, but the brotherhood of 
nations is the only workable principle. Men 
have been obsessed by military pomp, and the 
ladies have been obsessed by uniforms and brass 
buttons. The whole wretched business is insane 
and criminal. 

Again dishonesty and trickery have been con- 
sidered necessary in business. A recent book by 
Babson, a leading expert in business, is exten- 
sively quoted because he has convincingly con- 
tended that religion is necessary to prosperity. 
The editor of the Wall Street Journal, who 
would hardly be accused of being a sentimental- 
ist, said that the man who believes in God is a 
better man to transact business with than one 
who has no such faith. 

Does intemperance work well in the world? 
It was at first supposed that the objectors were 
visionary reformers. The final staggering blow 
is given to intemperance as it is shown to be un- 
workable even from the viewpoint of this world. 
Mr. Edison says: ‘‘Society will have to stop 
the liquor business, which is like throwing sand 
into the bearings of an engine.’’ It is in essence 


THE PRAGMATIC TEST 45 


a religious question throughout simply because 
intemperance will not work in God’s world. 

There are those who hold that race prejudice 
and the denial of brotherhood are the workable 
rules in society. But the men who arouse racial 
enmity, even though it may be done under the 
false plea of religion or patriotism, are the ene- 
mies of order in our world. The one hopeful 
outlook for the future is that Christianity will 
succeed in curing racial enmities. 

An Anglo-Saxon snobbishness that irritates 
and antagonizes the vast population of the col- 
ored races of the world carries with it the pos- 
sibility of the very destruction of our civiliza- 
tion. 

There is nothing practical in the world except 
Christian truth. Mankind has tried everything 
except Christianity. The world has tried hatred, 
greed, revenge, impurity, graft, self-interest, 
and has been brought to the brink of perdition. 
It is curious that we must stand up in the twenti- 
eth century and plead with the people who bear 
his name that Jesus Christ is not a foolish ruler, 
a visionary leader, that his word is the illuminat- 
ing word, that his way is the living way, that it 
is only safe to trust and follow him. The Church 
must repent of her lukewarmness and rebuke 
with prophetic wrath the selfishness of men and 
break her cowardly silence and say to the 
world, we have let you run affairs after your 


46 _ PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


selfish pagan methods until you have come to the ~ 
brink of ruin; unless you Christianize your in- 
dustrial system, it cannot last; unless you Chris- 
tionize your institutions, they cannot endure. 
‘Other foundation can no man lay than that is 
laid, which is Jesus Christ.’’ Too long have 
we imagined that the principles of Christ were 
for some other world. We have put the king- 
dom he came to establish beyond the stars. But 
this was not the purpose of his mission, this is 
not the meaning of his gospel. His laws are to 
be followed in the world in which we live, now 
and here, in street and market and factory. If 
you fail to live his laws here, you will have no 
chance to live them in heaven. It will only be 
through obedience to the moral law, and the 
Sermon on the Mount, and the Golden Rule, and 
a whole-hearted response to the Fatherhood of 
God and brotherhood of man and the suffering 
love of Jesus Christ that there can ever be a 
frictionless society in our world. When we say 
that Christ is our only hope, we have been accus- 
tomed to suppose that he is our only hope merely 
for the future world. But we are beginning to 
see, as we have not seen before, that Christ is 
our only hope in this world. He alone can save 
us from a hell in this present world. If in the 
future life only we have hope in Christ, we are 
of all men most miserable. 

The fundamental faith is the faith which best 


THE PRAGMATIC TEST 47 


satisfies the soul’s need and works best in life. 
If our religion is able to cast out the devils of 
pride, selfishness, greed, hate, and revenge, it 
can ignore the cheap flings of skepticism. If it 
cannot do that, it is useless to fall back on ab- 
stract theories of apologetics. 

It is not short of absurdity that men should 
endeavor to frame their apologetics for the 
Christian faith on whether some ancient and ob- 
scure prophecy is literally fulfilled, whereas the 
fact that the only workable ideal is the Christian 
ideal is an overwhelming evidence for the Chris- 
tian faith which is as fresh as the dew of the 
morning and as clear as the sunlight. The Chris- 
tian faith is true because it is the only faith that 
fits our world, the only faith that is adapted to 
the complex relationships of modern society, 
the only faith that can produce harmony and or- 
der and peace. Mr. Sherwood Eddy gives the 
testimony of some Chinese statesmen. A lead- 
ing patriot in China says: ‘‘We need Jesus 
Christ to-day because we need more light. Christ 
comes and teaches us to think in terms of God 
and humanity. This is the only hope so far as I 
can see.’’ 

Mr. Wang, a Chinese official, testified before 
an immense audience: ‘‘I had hoped that the 
Revolution and the Republic would save China 
and solve her problems, but conditions only grow 
worse. Christianity is the only hope of saving 


48 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


the country.’’ Mr. Wen, a high official, said: 
‘‘T take my stand for Jesus Christ, believing that 
only by organized Christianity, only by the 
Church of Christ, can we save China.’’ 

This appeal is repeated in every part of our 
hopeless and restless world. When the non- 
Christian nations ask for bread, shall we give 
them the superstition of a crass Adventism? 
Premillennialism promotes pessimism, para- 
lyzes patriotism, denies the hope of democracy, 
scoffs at social progress, scorns all sane ideals 
of Christianizing the world, with its superficial 
idea of heralding the gospel as the mere condi- 
tion of setting up a physical kingdom of Christ. 
You cannot reasonably suppose for a moment 
that the premillennial program can make any 
appeal to the thoughtful and intelligent among 
the heathen nations, a program summed up in 
the classic of the cult, ‘‘ Jesus is coming.’’ Pre- 
millennialism is the greatest religious hindrance 
to genuine missionary service. It has no faith 
in the workability of the gospel in society. Ac- 
cording to its crude conception, nothing will 
work but a celestial militarism, in which Jesus 
Christ will exercise more than the might and 
cruelty of a Kaiser. These advocates of crude 
adventism have no confidence in the improve- 
ment of the present world order; they are the 
hopeless followers of a Gospel of Hope. 

Whatever may be the explanation of Biblical 


THE PRAGMATIC TEST 49 


interpreters concerning some apocalyptic ele- 
ments in the teaching of Jesus, we know that 
the very heart and life of his revelation is both 
a right relationship of man to God and a har- 
monious relationship of men with men. 

Professor Ellwood has forcefully written: 
‘The social principles of Jesus are so plainly the 
only ones by which men ean live satisfactorily 
together that they might just as well forget the 
law of gravitation as to forget these principles. 
When one forgets the principles of gravitation, 
one must expect some hard bumps; so when our 
human world forgets these principles of right 
living together, it must expect some hard lessons 
—such as it has been receiving. ... A Chris- 
tian world is not only practicable; in the long 
run it will be found that no other sort is prac- 
ticable.’’ 

Whatever defects may belong to the pragma- 
tic philosophy, the pragmatic test is valuable 
and justifiable. ‘‘By their fruits ye shall know 
them.’’ That which works continuously for good 
must be in harmony with the nature of man and 
of the world in which he is placed, and that 
which works for evil carries the evidence of its 
falseness. 

The ultimate test of anything is that we have 
tried it and it works. 

Let us imagine that, beginning with to-mor- 
row, the spirit and truth of Jesus Christ should 


50 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


dominate all men. According to Lecky, the his-. 
torian, ‘‘the simple record of these short years 
of Christ’s active life has done more to regener- 
ate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions 
of philosophers and all the exhortations of 
moralists.’’ 

Suppose every man lived in the faith of divine 
Fatherhood and human brotherhood and eternal 
life and eternal love. 

Suppose that the Christian ideas of liberty, 
justice, brotherhood, and peace prevailed in hu- — 
man society. 

Suppose that the Christian spirit of unselfish- 
ness and sacrifice were dominant in human life. 

Then all the economic and political conditions 
of the world would be immensely improved, the 
selfish conflict of capital and labor would cease, 
war would be relegated to the barbarism of the 
past. 

There would be no evil lust or avarice, no 
drunkenness. The earth would become a house 
fit for the children of God to live in. 

These ideals which, incarnate in life and ap- 
plied to life, would change earth into heaven 
cannot be false. 

On the other hand, whatever is against the 
Christian faith or falls short of the Christian 
faith is condemned because it does not fit in with 
the world order. 

Professor Hocking, of Harvard, says: ‘‘If a 


THE PRAGMATIC TEST 51 


theory has no consequences, or bad ones; if it 
makes no difference to men, or undesirable dif- 
ferences; if it lowers the capacity of men to 
meet the stress of existence, or diminishes the 
worth to them of what existence they have, such 
a theory is somehow false, and we have no peace 
until it is remedied.”’ 

The last word against the non-Christian faith 
is that it is not practical in our everyday work- 
ing world. 

Polygamy was finally condemned, not from 
any theoretical or speculative standpoint, but 
because it produced endless confusion and dis- 
order in society and obstructed the progress of 
civilization. 

The institution of slavery was at last over- 
thrown, not by invincible arguments that demon- 
strated it to be against the will of God, but be- 
cause in its practical application it was shown to 
be unwise even from an economic standpoint. 

The final logic that is prevailing against in- 
temperance is the logic of life. 

The religious argument of preachers and pro- 
hibition reformers, while laying the foundation 
of ultimate victory, was considered visionary by 
the mass of men. But when the people were at 
last awakened to the fact that intemperance was 
bad business, then its final death knell was 
sounded. 

Professor Rauschenbusch gives this neat turn 


52 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


to an urgent question: ‘‘Is Christianity a fail-— 
ure? Ideny it. The question is in order whether 
anything in the history of humanity has suc- 
ceeded except Christianity. ’’ 

The Christian faith is the timeless and final 
religion since it has the developing capacity and 
the eternal message which enables it to meet the 
needs of any age and of all ages. 

Not only the power in heaven, but the power 
on earth belongs to Jesus Christ, a power that 
is inherent in the very structure and laws of 
our world, which are the allies of the forces of 
righteousness. 

‘*¥For right is right, since God is God, 
And right the day must win; 


To doubt would mean disloyalty, 
To falter would be sin.’’ 


CHAPTER III 
THE FALLACY OF THE FALSE ALTERNATIVE 


Tux fallacy of the false alternative is one of 
the most fatal of all forms of loose logic. 

Anaxagoras said twenty-five hundred years 
ago that men are always cutting the world in 
two with a hatchet. William James in his own 
unique way said that everybody dichotomizes 
the cosmos. Such simple words are crystal 
clear. There is a true statement of alternatives 
when one is true and the other false. We may 
choose the true. There is the false statement of 
alternatives when both alternatives are false 
‘and we are called upon to choose between them, 
or when both alternatives are true and we are 
called upon to choose between them. 

F. W. Boreham, essayist, writes: ‘‘Which 
will you have, strawberries or cream? I will 
take both strawberries and cream. We are too 
fond of taking the strawberries from the cream 
and the cream from the strawberries. I have 
on my plate here not two things but one thing, 
and that one thing is strawberries and cream. 
Dissection is not in my line. I only know that I 
thoroughly enjoy strawberries and cream.’’ 

53 


54 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Had you rather be a happy pig or an unhappy 
philosopher? You don’t have to be either. You 
can be a happy philosopher. 

Some false alternatives in general will be 
named before proceeding to those with their 
direct social bearing. 


I 


We are called upon to choose between faith 
and reason. But faith is not believing the ab- 
surd; it is believing the reasonable. Chris- 
tianity makes its appeal to the reasonable and 
has no place for credulity and superstition. 


IT 


We are called upon to choose between faith 
and good works. A defender of the first Says, 
‘The pendulum of good works has swung us too 
far from God.’’ Must we choose then between 
believing the gospel and living the gospel? Why 
not have both? 


Tit 


There is the false alternative, God or Law. 
This sets nature and God over against each 
other. As men came to recognize the reign of 


THE FALSE ALTERNATIVE 5D 


law, God was relegated to the gaps and excep- 
tions, and these were constantly being narrowed 
down. God dwelt in chaos instead of in the cos- 
mos. So the theories of Copernicus and New- 
ton were all considered at first anti-religious. 
The ancients knew little of natural law, and all 
the various phenomena of nature were attributed 
to various gods. 

The fallacy obtained that wherever natural 
law is seen a personal will is excluded. 

Browning writes: 

‘¢T report the world as I saw it; 
All is Love, yet all is Law.’’ 


There has prevailed the error of seeing God 
only in chaos and in the realm of the lawless. 
God was seen only in the phenomena for which 
no natural explanation had been found. The 
discovery of the law of gravitation was resisted 
as leading to atheism. We are now understand- 
ing that the reign of law enhances the elory of 
God, that laws are God’s method of working 
and that. he is the infinite and eternal energy 
from which all things proceed. The false anti- 
thesis is removed. 

Lord Kelvin, one of the world’s great scien- 
tists, said: ‘‘If you think strongly enough, you 
will be forced by science to the belief in God. 
You will find science not antagonistic, but help- 
ful, in religion.’’ 


56 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


IV 


In recent months much emphasis has been 
placed on the antithesis, belief in evolution or 
being a Christian. 

Tam not a scientific expert; but, aside from all 
discussion of scientific hypotheses, we must re- 
ject this as a false alternative. 

Leading Fundamentalists are constantly pic- 
turing the sad ending, the moral and spiritual 
collapse that has overtaken evolutionists and 
historical critics. I do not pose as a scientific 
expert on scientific questions, but I claim dis- 
cernment enough to see that this method of argu- 
ment gets nowhere. 

A large company of Biblical scholars like Mar- 
cus Dods and George Adam Smith have held to 
a vital Christian faith in the fundamental veri- 
ties that has lifted their moral life above re- 
proach. The well-worn illustration of the atro- 
phy of the spiritual faculties of Darwin through 
a one-sided and absorbing devotion to science 
is constantly narrated. There is the convenient 
omission, however, of Romanes, who was driven 
to God in his old age by the discovery of the 
Divine Spirit in the processes of Nature. No 
mention is made of John Fiske, who was brought 
by his study of evolution to believe in God. In 
his closing chapter on ‘‘Through Nature to God”? 


THE FALSE ALTERNATIVE 57 


he writes: ‘‘Of all the implications of the doc- 
trine of evolution with regard to man, I believe 
the very deepest and strongest to be that which 
asserts the everlasting reality of religion.’’ 

The theorizing of the Fundamentalists is 
against the facts. When a theory contradicts a 
fact, something will be broken, and it will not 
be the fact. There is the old story of the lawyer 
who said to his client: ‘‘Why, they can’t put 
you in jail.’ The reply of the client was: ‘Yes, 
but I’m in jail.’’ 

Against the censorious claims that men cannot 
hold certain views and at the same time be 
Christians is the indisputable fact of Christian 
life and character. Henry Drummond wrote 
‘The Ascent of Man.’’ It is aside from my sub- 
ject to pronounce on the correctness of his evo- 
lutionary hypothesis. My sole aim is to refute 
the old ad hominem argument that so many con- 
troversialists are at present repeating. In 
George Adam Smith’s masterful biography of 
Henry Drummond we have an almost ideal pic- 
ture of an almost ideal spirit. D. L. Moody 
and Drummond were as far apart as the poles in 
some of their views, but the young scientist gave 
himself to Christ under the preaching of Moody 
in 1871 and became his devoted friend and faith- 
ful coworker. Mr. Moody says: ‘‘No word of 
mine can better describe his character than do 
those which he presents to us in ‘The Greatest 


58 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Thing in the World!’ Some men take an occa- 
sional journey into the thirteenth chapter of — 
First Corinthians, but Henry Drummond was a 
man who lived in it. As you read what he terms 
the analysis of love, you find that all of its in- 
gredients were interwoven into his daily life, 
making him one of the most lovable men I have 
ever known. Was it courtesy you looked for, he 
was a perfect gentleman; was it kindness, he 
was always preferring another; was it humility, 
he was simple and not courting favor. It could 
be said of him truthfully, as it was said of the 
early apostles, ‘that men took knowledge of him, 
that he had been with Jesus.’ Nor was this love 
and kindness only shown to those who were his 
close friends. His face was an index to his inner 
life. It was genial and kind and made him, like 
his Master, a favorite with children. Never 
have I known a man who, in my opinion, lived 
nearer the Master, or sought to do his will more 
fully. No man has ever been with me for any 
length of time that I did not see something that 
was unlike Christ, and I often see it in myself, 
but not in Henry Drummond. All the time we 
were together he was a Christlike man, and often 
a rebuke to me. He always made me conscious 
of my sinfulness. Dr. John Watson said: ‘He 
is the most perfect man I ever knew.’ ”’ 

George Adam Smith wrote: ‘‘I have never 
seen in any man so much that was admirable, 


THE FALSE ALTERNATIVE 59 


for he seemed to possess all the graces and vir- 
tues of a perfect man.’’? One night he returned 
from evangelistic services in Edinburgh and was 
found with his face in his hands. In reply to a 
question, he answered with a groan: ‘‘Sick with 
the sins of men. How can God bear it?’’ But 
with this Christlike compassion, in the opinion 
of some modern traditionalists, Drummond was 
not a Christian because of his scientific beliefs. 
Mr. Moody, although a conservative in theology, 
offers a refreshing contrast to this type of 
bigotry. When an effort was made to persuade 
him not to allow Drummond to speak at North- 
field, he replied that Drummond was a better 
man than himself, and so would be allowed to 
speak. Drummond remarked to an attendant 
physician a month before his death: ‘‘ Moody is 
the biggest human I ever met.”’ 

Henry Drummond believed with all his heart 
that this is God’s world, and that'a fact is a 
fact and a very stubborn thing wherever found, 
and that the facts of science and religion can 
never be in contradiction to each other. He 
said to Gladstone and Huxley, who were in 
controversy: ‘‘You are both wrong, especially 
in what you agree on; the Christian revelation 
does not depend on the reconciliation of 
Genesis and geology. Your whole discussion 
is as irrelevant as the question of the Senior 
Wrangler who asked what Milton’s ‘Paradise 


60 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Lost’ was intended to prove.’? Drummond 
claimed that the first principle and the ruling 
principle in the interpretation of any book is 
the dominant purpose or motive of the whole. 
The dominant purpose in the case of the Bible 
reduces itself to one thing, religion. To have 
revealed to men modern science in the child- 
hood of the race would not only have been 
an anachronism, but a source of mystification 
and confusion. He confidently believed that in 
the realm of religion the Bible has brought to us 
a revelation which man could never have origi- 
nated, and which man can never Supersede. He 
bore with perfect temper all the vicious attacks 
that were made, and remarked: ‘It is hard to 
be called names, but the disciple is not above 
his Master.’? When sorrow came, he said: 
‘‘How suddenly the water deepens, sometimes, 
in one’s life. Well, I suppose it must be better, 
this deeper sea, than the shallows where the 
children play.’’ 

Would not Mr. Drummond compare fairly 
well at least with the best of the Fundmen- 
talists as a genuine Christian? 


Vv 


We have been made familiar with the false 
alternative, the Bible is either the Word of God 
or the work of man. 


THE FALSE ALTERNATIVE 61 


It never occurs to certain controversialsts 
with a bisecting mania that the Bible represents 
both the Word of God and the work of man. 


Vi 


There is the common false alternative of con- 
servatism or progress. Why not have both? 
Why not conserve the good and let it pass into 
the better and the best? We should not be 
swerved aside from the truth either by rigid con- 
servatism or reckless radicalism. 

Jesus tells us that the wise householder brings 
forth out of his treasure, not things new or old, 
but things new and old. 

How we fuss over words and try to impale 
each other on the horns of a false dilemma. 


Vil 


The false distinction of sacred or secular was 
introduced by the Roman Catholic Church. The 
ministry is sacred, while business is secular. A 
selfish policy is thus permitted to trade and in- 
dustry, but not to preaching the gospel. Dr. 
Josiah Strong wrote: ‘‘Yes, there are two 
worlds in conflict, whose struggle is as old as 
man, but they are not the sacred and secular; 
the so-called secular is a fiction. It is not the 
material and spiritual worlds; they were made 


62 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


to supplement one another that they might both 
serve God. The struggle is between the world 
of selfishness and the world of love, one of which 
is necessarily individualistic, while the other is 
social.’’ 


VIIr 


There is the false alternative of interest in 
time or eternity. Our regard must be for both. 
An otherworldliness which draws motive power 
from the heavenly world makes us strong for 
the duties of the present world. In a slightly 
different form the ‘‘either or’? fallacy is interest 
in the world and its future welfare or interest in 
our own future in the heavenly world. We 
should choose both. We may not live long in this 
world, but other people may be here for a long 
stretch of time. 


1Ds¢ 


There is the false alternative of soul or body. 
Jesus in his preaching and healing placed honor 
on both. Holiness and health are from the same 
root word. The body and soul are very close 
neighbors and each one catches the ailments of 
the other. 


D4 
We are faced with the false alternative of re- 


generation or eugenics. There is a notion that — 
good ancestry solves everything. A frequent 


THE FALSE ALTERNATIVE 63 


trouble with dead ancestors is that they are not 
dead enough. But while we see the failure of 
mere ancestry, we likewise see the force of it. 
The preacher who ridicules eugenics, or being 
well born, carefully considers it when it comes 
to the marriage of his own children. The 
preacher is standing on a sound scriptural foun- 
dation when he denounces the licentiousness of 
the young man and the mercenary marriage of 
the young woman, because ‘‘the iniquities of the 
fathers are visited upon the children.’’ 

We do well to stress both regeneration and 
eugenics. A person who is well born the first 
time stands a better chance for the new and sec- 
ond birth. The alternative is as false as that 
created by the boy with his little brother. ‘‘Did 
you give your little brother the choice of the 
apples as I told you?’’ ‘‘Yes, mama, I told him 
that he could take the little one or none and he 
took the little one.’’ 


xl 


We are called upon to make a choice between 
the power of the gospel and environment. Hx- 
treme advocates of environment deny the reality 
of sin. In a long struggle with hostile, vicious 
surroundings, selfish tendencies are developed. 
They tell us that if we make environments whole- 
some and people are well fed and well clothed 
the angelic qualities of human nature readily ap- 


64 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


pear. But our first parents and the fallen angels’ 
were in good surroundings.. But why deny the — 
power of environment? 

There are surroundings of poverty, filth, and 
vice in which people hardly have a fighting 
chance. Multiplied thousands are hardened by 
the cruel competition of modern industry. They 
care no more for sin and redemption and immor- 
tal life than for a last year’s almanac. In the 
face of a situation like this the other type of ex- 
tremist by way of ridiculing environment raises 
the alternative, salvation or sunshine, salvation 
or soup, salvation or soap. We don’t have to 
make the choice; we can have all of them. We 
have friends whom we would dislike very much 
to see discard the use of soap. This species of 
alliterative alternative becomes wearisome and 
monotonous. A hearty recognition of the value 
of human agencies while at the same time con- 
fessing their insufficiency is most conducive to 
a sane viewpoint. We have observed that the 
men who ridicule the power of environment are 
anxious that their children shall live in good 
surroundings. 

You recognize the advantage of children be- 
ing brought up under the influence of the Church 
and Sunday school. The fight against the whisky 
saloon was a fight for better surroundings. We 
wish to discourage some brethren from encour- | 
aging the extreme which they ridicule. When 


THE FALSE ALTERNATIVE 65 


you minimize certain forces and agencies in the 
individual and social life which men know to be 
true, you weaken your argument for the direct, 
divine agency which is forever true. Do not feed 
fuel to the foolish extreme which you wish to 
ridicule. Beware of the ‘‘either or’’ fallacy. 
Why raise the issue of a choice between the gos- 
pel and a good environment? Of two good 
thing's, choose both. 

A preacher friend with whom I dined asked 
if the good wife should help me to fried chicken 
or chicken pie. I did not wish to appear exorbi- 
tant in my request, but I was compelled to reply 
that I could not choose between the two, and 
that I would take both. Do not ask if we will 
take coffee or sugar. Please give us coffee and 
sugar. 


XII 


There is the false alternative, service for God 
or service for humanity. 

An ecclesiastic is quoted in the Homiletic Re- 
view as saying: ‘‘There are those who assume 
to correct the Church and undertake to con- 
strain her to renounce her position, contract her 
mission, and exchange the service of God for 
the service of humanity. They would have her 
abandon her high calling in Jesus Christ and 
give herself up to programs of social better- 
ment.’? The Church must certainly resist these 


66 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


extremists. But must we understand that serv- 
ice of God is inconsistent with the service of 
humanity? 

Jesus called the service of ‘‘one of the least 
of these my little ones’’ as service given to him, 
If the Church would improve the conditions of 
life in the crowded and pestilential slums, must 
she therefore abandon her high calling? We do 
not have to choose between philanthropy and 
religion. 

The partial gospel of yesterday which omitted 
the social note of Christ and the partial gospel 
of to-day which has no place for his spiritual 
message are alike doomed. This particular fal- 
lacy has so many forms that we rest here and 
carry over. 


XITT 


There is the choice set forth of laying stress 
on the individual or society, the one man or the 
mass of men. 

Tertullian wrote in the third century, ‘‘No- 
thing is so foreign to Christians as public af- 
fairs.’? Some years ago a leading New York 
preacher held aloof from a moral struggle, the 
issue of which vitally concerned the character of 
the city. When it was over and the forces of 
righteousness and decency had been defeated 
he said: ‘‘I had nothing to do with it. It is 
my business to build character.’? Why should 


THE FALSE ALTERNATIVE 67 


any preacher think that he is called upon to 
choose between service to society and spiritual 
ministry to the individual? 

A well-known writer on social questions says: 
‘A social aim on the part of the Church does 
not imply neglect of the individual members of 
society, but rather a more efficient and intelli- 
gent care of them. Physicians no longer aim 
simply at curing individuals. How much larger 
and wiser their present purpose, which under- 
takes to protect society as a whole by preven- 
tive measures. Hygiene, sanitation, vaccination, 
and quarantine can do more to prevent sickness 
than all practitioners combined can do to cure 
it. Physicians are no less faithful in treating 
individuals on account of having the larger so- 
cial aims. Why should not the clerical profes- 
sion gain the larger conception and nobler aim 
as well as the medical profession? 

‘¢Moral diseases are as contagious as physi- 
eal; and for a minister to refuse to help clear out 
gambling halls and houses of prostitution on the 
ground that it was his business to build charac- 
ter would be like a physician saying, ‘It is my 
business to build health; I have no concern about 
draining swamps, killing mosquitoes, and clean- 
ing up pest holes’—only no physician can be 
found ignorant enough to say such a thing.”’ 

No “either or’’ is permissible. Let us think 
both in terms of the individual and society. 


68 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


XIV 


There is the false alternative of salvation or 
legislation. 

A prominent government official said: ‘‘I 
hope soon all Church organizations will make it 
their exclusive business to preach the gospel of 
Jesus Christ, and to reach the conclusion that 
the world is to be regenerated by regenerated 
men and women and not by regenerated laws and 
ordinances.”’ 

What is the objection to having both regener- 
ated men and regenerated laws? Do not unre- 
generate laws indicate the character of the men 
who made them? 

In problems of capital and labor one group 
advocates the ‘‘simple gospel’’ and says: ‘‘Get 
people converted and the rest will take care of 
itself.’ 

The other group says: ‘‘Spend all your time 
changing the economic system.’’ Both are 
wrong. Representatives of Wall Street take 
their place among the prophets and are eagerly 
quoted by religious journals as they piously ex- 
hort the Church to stick to the simple gospel 
of the conversion of the individual. One serious 
difficulty is that these gentlemen will not allow 
the Church to begin on them. 

In the prohibition issue the advocacy of the 


THE FALSE ALTERNATIVE 69 


‘simple gospel’’ carried to the logical conclu- 
sion says: ‘‘No laws; wait until the greedy 
saloon keeper and his rum-soaked victims are 
converted.’’ Dr. W. N. Clark, with his accus- 
tomed clearness, says: ‘‘ Much cynical nonsense 
has been talked about the impossibility of mak- 
ing people moral by legislation. Of course it is 
true that the Christian ideal of inward righteous- 
ness cannot be attained in that manner. But 
that is no reason why that which is possible 
should not be done. We cannot make men right- 
eous by law, but by law we can make them quit 
a host of unrighteous practices. Society legis- 
lating can restrain the wicked and protect the 
weak and give life its opportunity ; it can lift the 
pressure of injustice from many who suffer 
wrong; it can organize many a work of helpful- 
ness and assist the Christian spirit in its service. 
The Christian ideal summons all governments to 
be its agents, doing what lies in their power to 
help it win its victory.”’ 

The individualist creates a false antithesis 
when he calls upon us to choose between the gos- 
pel and politics. Prohibition, child labor, and 
other questions having to do with social and in- 
dustrial relationships are both religious and poli- 
tical questions. 

Iam a strong advocate of the old-time reli- 
gion, if only you will make it old enough. 


70 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


‘‘Give me the old-time religion. It was good 
enough for Moses and it’s good enough for me.’’ 

But Moses was the deliverer of an enslaved 
and oppressed people and threw out the chal- 
lenge to the oppressor: ‘‘Let my people go.”’ 

The old-time religion was good enough for 
Isaiah, but Isaiah was sawn asunder for politi- 
cal meddling. The old-time religion was good 
enough for Amos; but Amos, with a heart aflame 
with indignation against injustice, rebuked with 
red-hot words the strong who oppressed the 
weak. The old-time religion was good enough 
for Hosea, but Hosea sobbed out of a broken 
heart over the social corruption of his people. 
In the prophetic message of Micah, George 
Adam Smith says: ‘‘Pinched peasant faces peer 
between all his words and fill the ellipses.”’ 

The old-time religion was good enough for 
Jesus whose express mission was ‘‘to set at 
liberty them that are bruised.”’ 

Those who are fond of ringing the changes on 
‘‘the simple gospel’’ and ‘‘old-time religion’’ 
usually identify these well-worn expressions 
with the theological interpretation of individ- 
ualism which still hinders the progress of the 
life and thought of the Church, and which places 
stress on the perpendicular relationship of life 
alone with a certain emotional ecstasy, and 
which ignores the horizontal relationships of 
society. 


THE FALSE ALTERNATIVE iu 


You may ask a certain type of big business 
man: ‘‘How many hours do your employees 
work??? And he replies: ‘‘Give me the old- 
time religion.’’ ‘‘How much do you pay?’’ The 
response is: ‘‘I believe in the simple gospel.’’ 
‘¢What about child labor???’ And again he an- 
swers: ‘‘I believe in the old-time religion.’’ 

Such men plainly hold to a perversion and 
parody of the good old-time religion. 

There is the type of religion which concerns 
itself only with the salvation that is in the far 
future. The argument is that, while your cir- 
cumstances may be all awry in this present 
world, you may suffer injustice, the good things 
of life may be most inequitably distributed, but 
all this is due to the inscrutable providence of 
God; do not meddle with the problem, it will 
all come right in another world. If you cannot 
have a piano on earth, you can have a harp in 
heaven. Endure for a while with pious resigna- 
tion. The discipline is good for your soul here, 
and you will get justice and your reward beyond. 
Time is so short and eternity so long that you 
should bear any injustice without resistance. 

But these bromidic solutions have failed to 
satisfy. Justice can no longer be postponed to 
another world. The demand is for justice here 
and now. The suffering from injustice and in- 
humanity must no longer be construed as the 
divine chastening for the disciplining of the 


72 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


soul. The promise of heaven is not to be used 
as an opiate to deaden the pain that ought not 
to be. The gospel was never intended as a 
‘‘dope’’ to quiet the pangs of pain, when the 
cause should be removed. Salvation is not sal- 
vation merely into heaven. It is present. It is 
moral and ethical. It is to be interpreted in 
terms of justice, mercy, and love. It is to make 
a better social order. We have no kind of moral 
right to be resigned to the social wrongs and op- 
pressions of the weak. It is a false interpreta- 
tion of life and blasphemy against God to say 
that it is his will, We are to wage a truceless 
warfare against injustice and inhumanity, which 
are the prolific sources of so much of the woe of 
the world. 

There are high-ups who are very much con- 
cerned that the low-downs get religion with the 
hope that the low-downs will be more contented 
with their lot. Capitalists of the individualistic 
sort recommend religion as an anodyne. 

Religion and revivals of religion were never 
intended for resignation results. 

The snake with a frog in its mouth is a natural 
optimist, but we can very easily understand why 
the frog is a pessimist. 

There is more downright falsehood and ignor- 
ance in the fallacy of the false alternative than 
in any other form of logical or illogical sophistry. 

I am glad of the opportunity of exposing the 


THE FALSE ALTERNATIVE 73 


fallacy as making some reparation for having 
gotten by the text-book on Logic in the course 
of study. 

How we impoverish life with an ‘‘either or’’ 
method! 

Dr. Rufus M. Jones writes these pertinent 
words: ‘‘Imagine a doctor bending over a pa- 
tient with heart disease and saying to him, 
‘Never mind your heart. The all-important 
thing is breathing. So long as you can breathe 
you will live, for life consists in inhaling and ex- 
haling air.? And then imagine another doctor 
of the opposite school saying to the consumptive 
patient, ‘Never mind your lungs. Simply take 
good care of your heart, for life is a matter of 
heartbeats. So long as you can keep the blood 
going through the valves out into the arteries 
and back through the veins, you will live.’ But 
life is not a thing that can be reduced to either 
heart or lungs—it must have both or it ceases to 
go. St. Paul found his Corinthian brethren 
bisecting their spiritual lives and narrowing 
their interests to one of two possibilities. One 
of them would choose Paul as his representative 
of faith, and see no value in the interpretation 
which Apollos had to give. Another attached 
himself to Apollos and missed all the rich con- 
tribution of Paul. Some of the saints of the 
Church selected Cephas as the only oracle, and 
they lost all breadth which would have come to 


74 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


them had they been able to make a synthesis of 
the different phases of the truth. St. Paul calls 
them from their divided half to a completed 
whole.’’ ; 

A question for those who have a mania for 
bisecting is, ‘‘ Which wing does a bird fly with?’’ 


CHAPTER IV 
THE GOLDEN RULE 


Tur very familiarity of the Golden Rule has 
dulled our minds to its meaning and to its variety 
of implications and applications. Since people 
in the main are not very apt in memorizing and 
quoting Scripture, an abbreviated form is com- 
monly used: ‘‘Do as you would be done by.”’ 


I 


There are different versions of the Golden 
Rule. 

There are the selfish perversions, ‘‘Do the 
other fellow before he gets a chance to do you,’’ 
and ‘‘Do unto others as they do unto you, but 
do it first.’’ 

There are the statements that belong to an 
imperfect religious conception. Rabbi Hillel 
said: ‘‘Do not to thy neighbor what is hateful 
to thyself.’’ 

Confucius said: ‘‘Do not unto others what 
you would not have them do unto you.”’ 

75 


76 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


These statements are good as far as they go. 

There is the philosophical expression of the 
Golden Rule. 

Kant gives the categorical imperative: ‘‘So 
live that the principle of your life may be worthy 
of being made a universal law.’’ This is at 
least a fine interpretation of the Golden Rule. 

If all the people in your community had as 
much concern for the higher interests of the 
community as you, would it be a better com- 
munity? If all the people should give as much to 
philanthropic and missionary purposes in pro- 
portion to their ability as we do, would these 
great enterprises be advanced? 

If all the members of your Church were as de- 
voted to the Church as we are, what would be 
the condition of our Church? 

If all the members of the Church cared as 
much for the lost as we do, would there be more 
sinners saved by the power of the gospel? 

If all who deal with their fellowmen in trade 
should be as anxious that the other man gets his 
rights as we are, would there be more harmo- 
nious relationships in society? 

If all the white people should treat the negroes 
as we do, would the weaker race have a worse or 
better chance? 

If other people lived by the Golden Rule as 
strictly as we do, would human brotherhood be 
promoted? 


THE GOLDEN RULE 17 


Could Jesus Christ take you as a good example 
for others to follow? 

‘‘So live that the principle of your life may 
be worthy of being made a universal law.’’ 

Let us indulge in an old form of expression 
that gets the ideal fully within our understand- 
ing. If everybody in the home were just like 
me, what kind of a home would our home be? 

If everybody in the Church were just like me, 
what kind of a Church would our Church be? 

If everybody in our community were just like 
me, what kind of a community would our com- 
munity be? 

If everybody in the nation were just like me, 
what kind of a nation would our nation be? 

If everybody in the world were just like me, 
what kind of a world would our world be? 

Kant again makes a suggestive interpretation 
of the Golden Rule: ‘‘So act as to treat hu- 
manity, whether in your own person or that of 
another, in every case as an end, never as a 
means only.”’ 

Men are prone to use their fellow men as tools 
for their own comfort, advancement, or pleasure. 

Men of wealth, social rank, or public office 
frequently use their position in ignoring the per- 
sonality of others, disregarding their rights, in 
closing against them the opportunity of develop- 
ment, and in other ways treating them as ma- 
chines or slaves. 


18 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


The true values of life are inverted and men 
use men to make money, instead of using money 
to make men. 

This condition of present-day society is un- 
christian and wicked. 

It is to be counteracted and transformed by 
the power of the gospel. 

Each man is to respect the individuality and 
observe the rights of every other man. 

You are to honor and treat other men as you 
in their places would wish to be honored and 
treated. 

You are to give such sympathy and service to 
others as you would wish to receive. 

In this manner the Golden Rule will take the 
place of the rule of gold. 

‘‘So act as to treat humanity, whether in your 
own person or that of another, in every case as 
an end, never as a Means only.”’ 


IT 


The Golden Rule is positive. 

It includes the negative aspect, yet takes a 
wideness of range that goes far beyond mere 
negative considerations. In contrast with the 
mere negative form you are commanded not 
only to avoid injuring your neighbor, but to do 
him all the good you ean. | 

It stands for justice and brotherhood and 


THE GOLDEN RULE 19 


mercy and generosity. Jesus wishes by means 
of it to take away the mood of selfishness and 
contempt, which obstructs the realization of a 
true human brotherhood. 

Negatively, it forbids my conducting my- 
self or my affairs in such a way as to bring in- 
jury or unhappiness or ruin to other people. 
Positively, it commands me to treat with cour- 
tesy and consideration and conscience and com- 
passion, superiors, equals, and inferiors as, all 
alike, immortal beings. 

Positively, it stands for unlimited good to 
others, and for unlimited growth to our own 
spirits. 

It opens up before life boundless vistas, and 
makes radiant every step of the ladder the whole 
long length of the shining way until its top rests 
on the threshold of the gates of pearl. 

‘‘Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them; for this is the law and the prophets.”’ 


Tit 


There is the reflex influence of conforming to 
the Golden Rule. 

It leads us to study ourselves and our real 
need, and then makes its inference from our need 
to the need of another. It makes us brotherly. 
It turns us from the past, what men have done 


80 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


to us, and turns us to the present and future, — 


what we should do for others. It requires that) 


our deepest and best nature shall be the guide 
of conduct. 

With all the direct aa positive good that the 
observance of the Golden Rule brings to other 
people the one unvarying good is the lifted hori- 
zon and the enlarged sympathies of your own 
life. 

Jesus concludes his statement with, ‘‘This is 
the law and the prophets.’’ In the Golden Rule 
the whole law of God is fulfilled. It fulfills 
all the prophetic visions of all the prophets of 
God who caught broken glimpses of the better 
day that is to be. It holds to a continuity with 
the past, and holds the promise of the future. It 
is as ancient as the heart of God and as new as 
the needs of our new day. 


IV 


There is a common misunderstanding of what 
a compliance with the Golden Rule might in- 
volve. There is the false notion that we might 
be placed under obligation to conform to some 
wish, without regard to the character of the 
person who makes the wish. 

The arrested criminal might say truthfully 
to the policeman, ‘‘If you were in my place and | 
I were in your place, I would turn you loose.’’ 





THE GOLDEN RULE 81 


But what the unchristian spirit would have men 
do to them is a false standard. 

The Golden Rule must have its basis in a 
right life, a Christlike spirit. 

It can only be kept in all of its high require- 
ments by those who know something of the trans- 
forming power of Christ in their own lives. 

It is no easy precept of mere human morality. 

There must be the enlightened conscience 
which knows how to make moral discernment 
and discrimination. 

It is necessary that there should dwell within 
our hearts a Christian love, which affords the 
only sufficient motive power for practicing this 
divine principle. 

There must be a high estimate of your own 
self. This is stated as a necessary condition: 
‘¢Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto 
vous? 

You would wish that men would impart to 
you that which is for your own highest good. 
Then you are to impart to men that which is for 
their own highest good. 

A proper appreciation of yourself and a true 
regard for yourself will lead you so to enrich 
your own life as to have something worth im- 
parting to others. You must possess values for 
the other life. 

There must be the cultivation of a spiritual 
imagination. Men have thought little of the im- 


82 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


portant place of imagination as related to Chris- 
tian living and the practice of the Golden Rule. 

A large measure of the cruelty and oppression 
of earth results from the stupid incapacity of 
men to put themselves in the other man’s place. 
While some artists and geniuses highly gifted 
in imagination have been immoral, yet very much 
wickedness is traceable to simple stupidity. 

The imagination is the great feeder of our 
sympathies. 

Brierly says: ‘‘The cool complacency of the 
well-to-do who nurse their own comfortable sen- 
sations, while ignoring the wretchedness beyond 
their boundary wall, would break up the moment 
they saw clearly into those other interiors. The 
world’s habitation of cruelty will be dealt with 
in drastic fashion when the civilized peoples 
have had their vision.’’ 


Vv 


The religious life is not one of mystic medita- 
tion. It is not absorption in dreams and visions. 
It is not the old ascetic idea of separation from 
the world, but it is knowing how to mix up in the 
world. 

If we are religious at all, we are religious in 
the relationships of life. The Golden Rule is — 
not a nice piece of sentiment for boys to learn in 


THE GOLDEN RULE 83 


Sunday school and then forget when they become 
business men. It is not a bit of impracticable 
idealism which men are to ignore in the fret and 
friction of every-day life. 

It is the only rule that is practicable. It is 
the only rule that will work. We have tried the 
rule of gold, the rule of selfishness, we have tried 
culture and science and diplomacy, and accord- 
ing to a common verdict, ‘‘The future of our 
civilization looks black.’’ We have tried every- 
thing else, and they only bring us to a blind 
alley. It is high time to give the Golden Rule a 
chance among men and to walk in the light of 
that ‘‘Light which lighteth every man coming 
into the world.’’ 

The multiplied relationships of to-day inten- 
sify the necessity of the Golden Rule. In other 
ages of the world, when nations dwelt apart in 
comparative independence of each other and the 
individual lived in isolation as a jack-of-all 
trades, there was not the same temptation to a 
violation of the spirit of justice, and there was 
not the same friction that followed this viola- 
tion. 

But to-day, in the complexity of modern life, 
our various relationships and points of contact 
have been so multiplied that we cannot go much 
farther unless the activities of our interrelated 
lives are harmonized by the principle of un- 
selfishness. 


84. PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


VI 


It is only the practice of the Golden Rule that 
will bring harmony to labor and capital. 

A prominent political leader recently said, ‘‘A 
great deal of strife can be avoided if capitalists 
will take a human interest in their employees. 
It seems to us it would be wise for them to take 
as much interest in their workers as they do in 
their customers. If they applied the Golden 
Rule, I am sure there would be very few strikes.”’ 

On the other hand, if the employee applied 
the Golden Rule, he would do honest work and 
would avoid making unreasonable demands. 

Politicians and hard-headed business men are 
at last coming into the conviction that the only 
way to industrial peace is the religious way. 

In the business conducted by Mr. Arthur 
Nash the profits are shared with the workmen, 
the workers own one-third of the stock, and cor- 
poration has been changed to cooperation. 
When asked what he thought of it, a gentleman 
of distinctive Jewish accent replied: ‘‘Vot I 
tink of it, vot I tink of it? I am only sorry I did 
not tink of it first.’’ Mr. Nash says: ‘‘I have 
come to the conclusion that all our economic 
troubles are due to a non-application of the Gol- 
den Rule, which is the only infallible, workable, 
industrial law in the universe.”’ 

There are some general principles having to 


THE GOLDEN RULE 85 


do with the application of the Golden Rule to 
industry, which by now should be generally ac- 
cepted. I am not affirming that the business of 
Mr. Nash is in entire accord with the Golden 
Rule, but I think we must give him credit for 
making a sincere effort in that direction. 

1. There should be conceded the right of labor 
in collective bargaining. 

A well-known teacher of sociology in one of 
our universities makes a criticism of this demand 
of labor. ‘‘It denies to the employer the in- 
alienable right to buy his labor in an open mar- 
ket.”’ 

A few years ago this professor was on the 
side of the great prophets: then gradually a 
metallic note crept into his voice and he is now 
on the side of large profits. 

A discriminating judge has said: ‘‘There can 
be no freedom of contract where there is not 
equality of opportunity on both sides.’’ 

What ghost of a show has the isolated individ- 
ual laborer against a close compact organization 
of capital? 

I do not speak as a partisan of capital or 
labor; | am no expert on matters of technique 
in industrial management; but unless there is 
fair play in these chaotic days, we will ‘‘sow the 
wind and reap the whirlwind.’’ 

The corporations are entitled to honest work. 
The laborers are entitled to fair wages. 


86 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


2. There should be gwen to labor some part 
an the management of the enterprise. 

The laborers whose life and welfare are at 
stake should have some share in the control of 
organized industries. They are very vitally af- 
fected by the length of the working day and 
the sanitary conditions under which they work. 

There must necessarily be a gradual change 
from the autocracy of the past to the coming 
democracy. 

An English economist insists that without in- 
dustrial democracy the forms of political democe- 
racy have availed but little and never will, since 
the beneficiaries of industrial privilege virtually 
own and actually control the State. 

Despite the wild radicalism of much of the 
French Eneyclopedia, we can hardly take issue 
with this statement: ‘‘A man’s most sacred 
property is his labor. It is anterior even to the 
right of property, for it is the possession of 
those who own nothing else, so he must be sure 
to make the best of it he can.’’ 

President Wilson, in speaking before the 
American Federation of Labor, said: ‘‘I am 
speaking of my own experience when I say that 
the laborers are more reasonable in a larger 
number of cases than the capitalists.’’ 

Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., has put the mat- 
ter well: ‘‘Surely it is not consistent for us 


THE GOLDEN RULE 87 


Americans to demand democracy in government 
and practice autocracy in industry.’’ 

3. The workmen should share im the profits. 
This will tend to the distribution of wealth and 
the prevention of dangerous extremes in society. 

The Federal Commission on Industrial Rela- 
tions divides the population into three sections: 

First, the rich, with two per cent of the popu- 
lation, own sixty per cent of the wealth. 

Second, the middle class, with thirty-three per 
cent of the population, own thirty-five per cent 
of the wealth. 

Third, the poor constitute sixty-five per cent 
of the population, with five per cent of the wealth. 

At the top of the social scale luxury produces 
the same waste as poverty does at the bottom; 
disease, degeneracy, and false standard of liv- 
ing. 

It is a case in which extremes meet in similar 
forms of viciousness and depravity. 

A society which produces these extremes can- 
not be said to rest on a just basis. 

In all this there is no cheap appeal to class 
prejudice. There is always the rage of envy 
on the part of the down and outs. The man who 
makes his money honestly and spends it gener- 
ously is worth more than all his envious detrac- 
tors. 

But the industrial autocrat produces the Bol- 
shevist, the I. W. W., and the selfish profiteer. 


88 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Anything is better than the red flag, but the 
only way to avoid it is to place business on a just 
basis. Chaplain Tiplady makes the pertinent 
statement: ‘‘Bolshevism is rampant in the 
world to-day, and cannot be destroyed by re- 
pression. It must be stamped out by the appli- 
cation of Christianity to business and industry. 
The Church must decide whether the social 
wrongs of the present age are to be dealt with by 
religion or revolution.’’ 

4. There should be a reasonable limitation of 
working hours. Every activity of body or mind 
uses up some physical tissues, which must be re- 
moved from the body and replaced by new tis- 
sues. In employments where the labor is mono- 
tonous and strenuous, the hours of labor should 
be fewer than in the more pleasant occupations. 

Investigations have shown that some steel 
workers have worked twelve hours a day and for 
seven days in a week. In some instances there 
were twenty-four hours of continuous service 
when the change from day to night work took 
place. 

Excessive toil results in fatigue and the perils 
that accompany fatigue. It has been abundantly 
demonstrated that fatigue weakens both physi- 
cal resistance against disease and moral resis- 
tance against vice. 

It has been proved by actual experiment that 
men have produced more products and better 


a a = 


THE GOLDEN RULE 89 


products in fewer hours. There is likewise the 
tendency at least to produce better men. 

The committee of churchmen, under the lead- 
ership of Bishop F. J. McConnell, who were in- 
strumental in reducing the excessive hours of 
labor were condemned even by other churchmen 
as meddlers. 

0. There should be the protection of childhood 
from wmdustrial oppression and cruelty. It ap- 
pears that such a humane and Christian princi- 
ple would be readily accepted by all, but we must 
reckon with the statement of Macaulay that the 
doctrine of gravitation would not yet be accepted 
if it had interfered with vested interests. 

There are now nine States in our Union which 
have no laws prohibiting all children under 
fourteen from working in both factories and 
stores. Over one million children from ten to 
sixteen years are working in the United States 
in factories, mills, mines, canneries, agriculture, 
and other occupations. Nearly four hundred 
thousand of them are less than fourteen years 
of age. More than four hundred thousand of the 
million children at work between the ages of ten 
and fifteen years are employed in non-agricul- 
tural occupations. 

We are not to worship the doctrine of States’ 
rights as a political fetish, for we have no right 
to cling stubbornly to States’ rights unless the 
States are willing to do right. 


90 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


We cannot begin to reconcile the present con- 
dition of child labor in the United States with 
the Golden Rule of Christ. 

Are we to continue to allow the promise and 
possibility of childhood, the seed corn of the 
nation, to be sacrificed for gain? 


‘«They look up with their pale and sunken faces, 
And their look is dread to see, 
For they mind you of their angels in high places, 
With eyes turned on Deity. 
How long, they say, how long, O cruel nation, 
Will you stand to move the world on a child’s heart, 
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, 
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? 
Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, 
And your purple shows your path, 
But the child’s sob in the silence curses deeper 
Than the strong man in his wrath.’’ 


How long shall the slaughter of the innocents 
continue? Shall we remain content with this 
sacrifice? 

Artemus Ward declared the Civil War must 
continue; and as an expression of his devotion 
to the cause, he was willing to sacrifice all of his 
wife’s relatives. 

Do our industrial leaders propose to carry on 
their business by the proxy sacrifice of children? 

We are prepared to believe that Bishop C. D. 
Williams was speaking with soberness when he 
said: ‘‘There is enough social dynamite in the 
utterances of Jesus to blow to bits every tyranny 


THE GOLDEN RULE 91 


and oppression, every wrong and injustice, how- 
ever hoary with age and buttressed with custom 
and ancient privilege, under which humanity 
groans. Only the gospel of the kingdom nor- 
mally works like leaven rather than like dyna- 
mite. It generally changes society by evolution 
rather than by revolution. It is‘ constructive 
rather than destructive.’’ 

The Church is not authorized to pass on cer- 
tain technical matters in the management of in- 
dustry. Preachers are not competent to decide 
in an offhand way the justice or injustice of the 
wages of employees. But there are certain 
definite Christian principles in the relationships 
of industry that the Church and ministry are 
under obligation to champion. 

The representation is made that Jesus directed 
himself solely to the individual, whereas the an- 
tagonism that resulted in his death was pro- 
voked by his attack on corporate and vested in- 
terests. ‘‘You have made my Father’s house a 
den of thieves.’’ 

There is a certain type of corporation man- 
ager who is very zealous for the simple gospel. 

The preacher is to keep his eye on heaven, 
while the corporation is to keep its eye on the 
main chance in this mundane sphere. There are 
corporations that would stifle the conscience of 
the preacher by saying to him, ‘‘You leave the 
mooted industrial question to us, and we will 


92 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


see to it that you receive an earthly reward in © 
addition to your heavenly reward.’’ One only 
has to know a little history to know what has 
happened with the policy of no interference and 
‘‘hands off.’’ 

When Lord Shaftesbury introduced his legis- 
lation for regulating factories and mines with 
the purpose of preventing the exploitation of 
women and children, he met the most bitter an- 
tagonism, not only of the politicians, but of the 
Church and of nearly the whole bench of bishops 
in the House of Lords. 

All legislation for industrial reform, includ- 
ing safety devices and enactments for social and 
industrial justice, has generally met the deter- 
mined opposition of corporations. 

There are Churchmen who profess to dwell in 
a lofty spiritual atmosphere and who discard all 
problems of labor and capital. This was not the 
way of the old prophets. Their words fairly 
blaze with indignant protest: 

‘‘They built up Zion with blood.’’ 

‘¢‘Let judgment roll down as waters, and right- 
eousness as a mighty stream.’’ 

It was not the way of Jesus when he thun- 
dered against those ‘‘who devoured widows’ 
houses.’’ The ery for the simple gospel has 
been made identical with a thin and emasculated 
gospel. 

A prominent Church leader said: ‘‘The 


THE GOLDEN RULE 93 


worker does not need more labor laws; he needs 
more of God.’’ But what is the objection of 
having both more just and democratic laws and 
more of God? 

It seems more probable that the workman 
laboring under just and humane conditions 
would receive God into his life, than would the 
laborer who nurses bitterness from a sense of 
injustice. 

Vil 


There is the application of the Golden Rule to 
freedom of speech. That right has been accen- 
tuated by what is known as the spy system in 
certain large industries, and also by the contro- 
versies that have been carried on as regards cer- 
tain political and religious questions. 

1. Growing out of the hysteria of fear pro- 
duced by the World War, some thirty-four 
States and territories passed ‘‘Anti-sedition’’ 
laws directed against certain economic and poli- 
tical beliefs. Almost everybody was seeing 
‘‘red’’ and thinking ‘‘red.”’ 

As a part of the reactionary movement the 
fight against freedom of speech was waged 
against the teacher and the preacher. The de- 
sire to protect political and ecclesiastical ortho- 
doxy went far beyond any desire to protect liv- 
ing men from wrong and injustice. The declara- 
tion in our Constitution has been ignored: ‘‘Con- 


94 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


gress shall make no law respecting an establish- 
ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or 
of the press.’’ 

All class government is opposed to freedom of 
speech. Bolshevism is class government. 
Lenine, an arch-priest of this political heresy, 
said: ‘‘We are going to smite the journals with 
fines and shut them up, arrest the editors and 
hold them as: hostages.’’ 

Autoeracy is class government and has length- 
ened out its hideous existence by suppressing 
free speech. 

Buckle, the English historian, says: ‘‘In the 
period from the sixth to the tenth century there 
were not in all Europe more than three or four 
men who dared to think for themselves, and even 
they were obliged to veil their meaning in ob- 
scure and mystical language. Under these cir- 
cumstances the few who were able to read con- 
fined their studies to works which encouraged 
and strengthened their superstitions.’’ 

An essential element of democracy is the right 
of free speech. 

2. It may not be possible to draw a distinct 
line between liberty and license as regards 
speech. 

There is the law against libel which is followed 
by penalty. No man can reasonably appeal to 
the principle of freedom to justify profane or 


Ve ee 


THE GOLDEN RULE 95 


obscene language. Freedom of speech does not 
include the right to incite to disobedience of 
law. There are the modifying terms in the Con- 
stitution, ‘‘peaceably’’ and to ‘‘petition the gov- 
ernment.’’ 

There are certain limitations recognized by 
reason and common-sense discrimination that 
apply to incendiary and treasonable utterances. 

It is not permissible to incite to murder. Ina 
democracy there are legal means for removing 
grievances, so that any inducement to violence 
is not permitted. 

If a citizen assert his freedom in expressing 
treasonable utterances, the State has a right to 
say, ‘‘You are perfectly free to say what you 
please, but the State is perfectly free to see to 
it that you exercise this freedom somewhere out- 
side the State.’’ 

If a preacher should assert his freedom in an- 
tagonizing fundamental doctrines of Christian- 
ity, the Church has a right to say, ‘‘You are per- 
fectly free to say what you please, but the Church 
is perfectly free to see to it that you exercise this 
freedom somewhere outside the Church.’’ 

3. A reasonable reserve should be cultivated. 
No man should feel constrained to make a con- 
stant exposure of his mental insides. But bar- 
ring an undue license of speech, there must be 
conceded the right of freedom. To suppress 
forcibly all erroneous utterances would be the 


96 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


worst possible damage that could happen. The — 
errors festering within are more dangerous both 
to the individual and society. 

The friction of minds produces light. It is 
better to express opinions that are false, that 
they may be rectified in the rough and tumble 
of discussion, than to suppress opinions that are 
true through considerations of cowardly pru- 
dence. The man who is mistaken, but who is 
true to the truth as he sees it, will come into pos- 
session of the living truth. The man who is in 
possession of the truth but represses it, will have 
at last only the dry bones of truth stripped of 
flesh and blood. Freedom of discussion is based 
not on the supposition that everybody is right, 
but on the fact that everybody is wrong in some 
particular ideas, with the Neat: of these er- 
rors being eaproored. 

4. Our safety and progress are involved in 
this principle of freedom. 

Dr. Hugh Black says, as regards the Church: 
‘<The Church, in seeking to satisfy the intellect, 
should not be afraid of controversy. Indeed we 
should welcome it. There is a false peace in in- 
tellectual life as elsewhere which consists in 
creating a desert and calling it peace. In every 
other sphere of knowledge, progress comes by 
criticism, by fearless disputes. Untrammeled 
discussion is the only safeguard of truth. When 
we recognize that truth is an ideal which we can 


THE GOLDEN RULE 97 


only hope to approximate, we are not distressed 
by comparative failure. The early Church ac- 
quired its theology by free discussion. We must 
seek to shape our system of thought by trans- 
lating into modern language and modern 
thought the doctrines of faith. To do this we 
should grant willingly and gladly freedom to 
investigate and to think. We who believe in the 
triumph of truth may well believe in such free- 
dom.”’ 

Furthermore, failure always follows the fal- 
lacy of physical force. The most dangerous 
idea is the one that is suppressed. It has all the 
explosive qualities of dynamite. Make a mar- 
tyr of the false or foolish agitator and forth- 
with a number of people will steadfastly believe 
that he is the paragon of wisdom and truth. Let 
him talk until his tongue lolls out and his utter- 
ances begin to sound like the ravings of lunacy. 

Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, of the U. S. 
Supreme Court, said: ‘‘It is with effervescing 
opinions as with the not yet forgotten cham- 
pagnes, the quickest way to let them get flat is to 
let them get exposed to the air.’’ | 

Mr. Jefferson expressed his faith in the inher- 
ent strength of free government in the following 
words: ‘‘If there be any among us who wish to 
dissolve the union, or to change its republican 
form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments 
of the safety with which error of opinion may be 


98 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


tolerated, where reason is left free to combat 
1hey 

5. The only way to fight error is with truth. 
The only way to overcome darkness is with light. 

The classic statements on freedom of speech 
are made by Milton and Mill. 

Milton in his ‘‘Areopagitica’’ writes: ‘‘We 
cannot call the forceful suppression of error wis- 
dom, since the corruptions which it seeks to pre- 
vent break in faster at other doors which cannot 
be shut. Though all the winds of doctrine were 
let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in 
the field, we do injuriously by licensing and pro- 
hibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and 
falsehood grapple; who ever knew truth put to 
the worse in a free and open encounter ?’’ 

There are three propositions given by Mill 
that are stated in substance which express the 
advantages of freedom of thought and speech. 

First, the received opinion may be false, and 
some other opinion consequently true. In this 
instance the suppression of liberty of discussion 
deprives people of the opportunity of exchang- 
ing error for truth. 

Second, the received opinion may be true and 
the opposing opinion false. In this case, the pro- 
hibition of free speech to the opposition deprives 
people of that clearness in the apprehension of 
truth which comes from conflict with error. Un- 
less the received opinion, even though true, is 


THE GOLDEN RULE ve 


suffered to be vigorously contested, it will for 
the most part be held in the manner of a preju- 
dice with little feeling of its rational ground. It 
is in danger of becoming a mere dogma without 
any real and heartfelt conviction. 

Third, the conflicting doctrines may share the 
truth between them. Neither opinion is wholly 
true or wholly false. The nonconforming opin- 
ion is needed to supply the remainder of the 
truth, of which the received doctrine embodies 
only a part. Since the prevailing opinion is 
rarely the whole truth, it is only by the collision 
of adverse opinions that the remainder of the 
truth has any chance of being supplied. So in 
this instance to suppress the nonconforming 
opinion is to deprive people of the whole truth. 

Viscount Bryce, in his epoch-marking work, 
‘‘Modern Democracies,’”’ says: ‘‘Free discus- 
sion will sift all statements. All arguments will 
be heard and canvassed. The people will know 
how to choose the sound and reject the unsound. 
They may be for a time misled, but general free- 
dom will work out better than any kind of re- 
straint. In free countries no one now impeaches 
the principle, whether or not he expects from it 
all it seems to promise. The liberty of the press 
remains an Ark of the Covenant in every democ- 
racy.’’ 

In many of our great dailies the proprietors 


100 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


keep an ear to the ground and speak softly but 
firmly into the ears of editors. 

A great daily must have abundant advertise- 
ments. To secure the advertisements and make 
them remunerative there must be a large sub- 
scription list. The proprietor must feel the 
pulse beat of advertisers and subscribers, and 
the editor must feel the purse beat of the pro- 
prietor. ‘‘When the opinions of a journal be- 
gin to count, it ceases to have opinions.”’ 

It is equally true that when the opinions of 
some politicians and preachers begin to count 
they cease to have opinions and merely repeat 
the shibboleths of the established order that 
they may have a safer tenure in their estab- 
lished position. 

The progress of society, the State, and the 
Church has always been conditioned on the pio- 
neers who blazed the pathway which must be 
walked in because they were willing to think 
differently. 


Vill 


There is to be the application of the Golden 
Rule in social service. There is the call not 
only for justice, but for mercy. 

If from the time your eyes first opened on the 
heht you were doomed to abject poverty, in an 
atmosphere of crime and immorality, with the 
handicaps of ignorance and disease, with 


THE GOLDEN RULE 101 


scarcely a fighting chance in life, with the heavy 
weights both of evil heredity and evil environ- 
ment, do you not think from your present view- 
point that you would want some strong and 
sympathetic persons to bring you help in your 
hopeless struggle? Then it is for you to carry 
help and hope to such a life. 

This divine principle is well expressed by a 
recent writer: ‘‘I believe that babies every- 
where should be as well-born and kindly tended 
as I would have my own; that motherhood 
_ Should be protected as I would have the mother 
that is dearest to me; that childhood should be 
as joyous and youth as free to come to its own 
as mine should be if I could have my wish; that 
womanhood should be guarded everywhere with 
the chivalry that I would give my best; that 
every man’s labor should be as honored and as 
fairly estimated as I want mine to be; that all 
lives should be lightened and blessed with the 
leisure that I enjoy for myself; that the higher 
human values for which I crave should be avail- 
able for all mankind; that every man’s future 
should be cared for as I would have my own; 
and that everyone everywhere should have the 
love and kindly esteem and generous apprecia- 
tion that I desire so keenly for myself.’’ 

A selfish individualism has no slightest sup- 
port in the teaching of Jesus. He held that 
wealth only fulfilled its purpose in the welfare 


102 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


of humanity. He held that the true gold of earth 
was humanity and that according to the divine 
estimate ‘‘one of these little ones’’ was of in- 
estimable value. That man, however techni- 
cally honest and outwardly respectable and up- 
right, who ignores his debt to the unprivileged 
has not lived according to the principles of 
Jesus. 

A man of large wealth died some years ago, 
leaving no legacy to any worthy enterprise. His 
name is a very familiar one, and many of our 
readers doubtless know the nameless person to 
whom reference is made. His poor defense for 
his selfishness is to the effect that he refused 
to do any generous thing lest he might be 
thought vain. He preferred to gorge his three 
heirs with wealth rather than minister in any 
way to his people who had made his fortune 
possible. 

If all men of wealth were like this man, the 
United States would be red in a decade. He 
was not only false to the spirit of all the teach- 
ing of Jesus on stewardship, but he set an ex- 
ample of selfishness which, if generally followed 
to-day, would inevitably result in red-handed 
revolution. Men in general, irrespective of re- 
ligion, believe that the possessors of wealth 
owe a debt to society, and wealth has perma- 
nent security only as it pays the debt. Those 
of smaller possessions owe this debt, and it is 


a ae 


THE GOLDEN RULE 103 


a fearful failure to appear before the bar of 
divine justice without having paid it. 

It is refreshing to turn to a contrast. Le- 
land Stanford lost his only child, and while he 
was one of the United States Senators from 
California he was once saying to himself, ‘‘I 
have nothing to live for. I have no children.’’ 
He put a million dollars into a private home, 
but it was not a home to him. One night in a 
dream his son appeared to him and said: 
‘‘Father, never say again you have nothing to 
live for—live for humanity, live for other peo- 
ples’ children.’’ There soon arose at Palo Alto 
the Leland Stanford Junior University at a 
cost of $20,000,000. He and Mrs. Stanford be- 
came the devoted Christian servants of the 
poor, the orphan, and the suffering and left all 
their property to go on doing good to the rising 
generations. 

We can well afford to pray that many other 
men might dream dreams like this and practice 
their dreams as did Leland Stanford. 

The only sin we find in Dives, who lifted up 
his eyes in hell, is that he was a selfish individ- 
ualist. 

James Russell Lowell put this sin in memor- 
able verse in his ‘‘Parable.’’ He tells how our 
Lord determined to come back to earth to see 
‘‘how the men my brethren believe in me.’’ 
Great preparations were made to receive him. 


104 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


The scribes and Pharisees and rulers of the day 
did everything that they could think of to do 
him royal honor. Costly carpets were spread 
for his feet. Great organs poured forth their 
noble music. He was shown the magnificent 
churches and cathedrals and the images of 
himself that they had reared. But the Saviour 
walked with downcast eyes and sorrowful coun- 
tenance. He could hear the groans of the for- 
gotten, the oppressed. At last He spoke: 


‘‘Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then, 
On the bodies and souls of living men? 
And think ye that building shall endure 
Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor? 


With gates of silver and bars of gold 

Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father’s fold; 
I have heard the dropping of their tears 

In heaven these eighteen hundred years.’’ 


Then Christ sought out an artisan, 

A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, 
And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin 
Pushed from her faintly want and sin. 


These set He in the midst of them, 

And as they drew back their garment-hem 

For fear of defilement, ‘‘Lo, here,’’ said he, 
‘<The images ye have made of me.’’ 


—_——s 


———_— ee ee 


| 





CHAPTER V 
THE GOLDEN RULE (Concluded) 


THERE has been stressed the fact of our so- 
cial obligation in relieving the physical wretch- 
edness of people. All schemes of material im- 
provement are good as far as they go, but they 
do not go far enough. 

You may have your regulations for pure food 
and sanitary milk for the children, and reason- 
able hours and fair wages for the laborer. All 
of these should be done. And yet you have not 
solved the economic problem, for we have no 
euarantee that men will provide for their fami- 
lies, and that poverty and wretchedness will be 
removed. What security have we against the 
expenditure of money in sin, debauchery, licen- 
tiousness, and gambling, except a change of pur- 
pose, a renewed will, a transformation of the 
inner spirit? Our self-mastery is through our 
Master, even Christ. 

There is no possibility of advancing the in- 
terests of labor without reckoning with the 
moral issues involved. We will not attempt to 
make any discriminating estimate of the two 


counter statements: ‘‘Poverty produces drunk- 
105 


106 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


enness, and drunkenness produces poverty.’’ 
What we are now contending for is the self-evi- 
dent proposition that drunkenness produces 
much poverty. We are gratified to know that 
this is being recognized by labor. Forty-five 
per cent of the labor leaders in England are 
strictly temperate. John Burns, a leading 
labor leader of England, says: ‘‘One-half of 
the problem of the unemployed in England is 
caused by intemperance.’’ 
This leads us to the next proposition. 


I 


The Golden Rule will lead you to a spiritual 
ministry. 

If you are conscious that you have a posses- 
sion in Jesus Christ that is the supreme need 
of every man who is without it, then you are 
under obligation to share the-high spiritual 
value with such a life. 

It is here that we are to find our strong mo- 
tive in our whole missionary endeavor. 

If you were in total spiritual darkness, with- 
out the light of Jesus Christ, without God and 
without hope in the world, looking at the ques- 
tion from your viewpoint of advantage, would 
you not want some Christlike spirit to bring 
you the gospel message with its wealth of com- 
fort and inspiration? 


THE GOLDEN RULE 107 


When we experience the riches of Christ in 
our lives, we can say without any sort of cant 
that, compared with him, the wealth of the 
world is but gaudy tinsel. Then we know that 
what Jesus Christ is to our own spirits, he can 
be to every one who believes in him. 


‘¢O what delights can equal those 
That stir the spirit’s inner deeps, 
When one who loves and knows not reaps 
A truth from one who loves and knows?’’ 


II 


The Golden Rule must be conscientiously ap- 
plied to the interracial relationship of life. The 
divine principle involves the payment of the 
debt that strength owes to weakness. It frees 
the privileged life from cruelty and contempt. 
If I were a foreigner, I am sure [ would prefer 
being called an Italian or a Chinaman rather 
than a ‘‘Dago”’ or a ‘‘Chink.”’ 

If I were a negro, I think I would recognize 
and adapt myself to my social position; but I 
am sure I would not want my inferiority thrust 
at me like an open knife. I am sure I would 
not want ‘‘nigger,’’ with a tone of reflection 
that comes from a peculiar inflection, constant- 
ly rubbed in on my sensibilities. I would want 
to be treated with fairness and justice. What 


108 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


I would not want done to me, I must not do to 
others. 

There has been the disposition on the part of 
many white people to fall into such a fear over 
the bugaboo of social equality that they fail 
to exercise toward the negro common justice. 

Sam was asked to go on an errand that car- 
ried him by the graveyard and he said: ‘‘No 
suh, boss, | ain’t gwine by dar; I’se skeerd of 
dem ghosts.’’ ‘‘O, Sam, don’t you know ghosts 
ean’t hurt you?’’ ‘‘Yes, suh, I knows ghosts 
can’t hurt you, but dey sho kin make you hurt 
yo’self.’’ 

The ghost of social equality results in some 
people hurting themselves. 

The leading representatives, with the large 
majority of each race, fully agree on these two 
considerations; there should be no _ social 
equality and there should be racial integrity. 
One has to practice only ordinary observation 
to see that our peril is not social equality among 
the higher elements of the races, but sexual 
equality among the lower elements of the races. 
As a race develops, there is a growth of racial 
consciousness and of the ideal of racial integ- 
rity. Each race has its peculiar contribution 
to make to the common treasure of humanity, 
and this contribution can only be made by 
maintaining racial integrity. What the far 
future may hold—that is too remote for specu- 


THE GOLDEN RULE 109 


lation—we cannot say, but the pathway of our 
present program for the good of all races is 
clearly evident. 

The mixture of the races either by mixed 
marriage or illicit relationship must be stoutly 
opposed. The tragedy of this intermingling is 
for the negro the most pitiable one m human 
history. 

The fear of social equality on the part of the 
white race has resulted in a failure very many 
times to do the negro justice as a human being 
and an American citizen. 

The unreasonable and nervous anxiety as re- 
gards negro domination magnifies unduly the 
strength of the negro race. 

Booker Washington facetiously remarked: 
‘‘The negro race is stronger than the white race, 
since it takes one hundred per cent of white 
blood to make a white man, while one per cent 
of negro blood makes a negro.”’ 

We are under every obligation of honor to 
treat the negro fairly, since our own fore- 
fathers invited the negro to come and live with 
us, and the invitation was given in such an ur- 
gent and even coercive way that it was not pos- 
sible for the negro to refuse the invitation. Un- 
der these circumstances it is mean and con- 
temptible to withhold from the negro the largest 
possibility for his own racial progress. The 
people who pride themselves on one hundred 


110 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


per cent Americanism are certainly much less 
than one hundred per cent American, unless 
they are willing that every black child should 
have the opportunity of an education and a fair 
chance in the world. 

When Simon Peter hesitated in answering a 
call to minister to a man of another race, he 
was led by the Spirit of God into his great 
declaration, ‘‘Of a truth I perceive that God is 
no respecter of persons.’’ 

The ideal of racial integrity is normal and 
justifiable, but racial prejudice and enmity are 
abnormal and un-Christian. 

Racial prejudice and enmity, instead of be- 
ing in reality instinctive, appear to be trans- 
mitted by social heredity and as a matter of 
cultivation, as is illustrated in the attitude of 
small children. 

A Southern white man is quoted as having 
said: ‘‘I ain’t got nothing agin’ the nigger. I 
was fourteen years old before I knew I was bet- 
ter than a nigger.’’ 

As difficult as the task is, we must strive as 
earnestly against race prejudice as we strive to 
maintain racial integrity. Bishop A. G. Hay- 
good was speaking out of his own experience 
when he said: ‘‘Race prejudice—it is harder 
than quartz; who can break it? It is colder 
than the icebergs of the Arctics; who can melt 
it?’’ 


a) 


THE GOLDEN RULE 111 


No man of a stronger race can deliberately 
inflict an injury on a member of a weaker race 
without inflicting a double injury upon his own 
life. 

The frail fingers of the weakest child of God 
whom you wrong can bar forever against you 
the gates of gold, even though those frail fingers - 
are black. 


iit 


The Golden Rule is the only workable rule in 
our international relations. The solidarity of 
our modern world with its interrelationship and 
interdependence makes the application of the 
Golden Rule imperative. The whole world is so 
tied together that it is not so much one neigh- 
borhood as a vast apartment house, where a de- 
structive fire in one room is of much concern 
to all the occupants. Even the ery of an in- 
fant in one room may be of such interest as to 
drive slumber away from a disinterested party 
in another room. 

Some sort of international agreement, some 
form of a league of nations is a vital necessity. 
Our only hope in a league of nations is not 
through confidence in the mere power of organ- 
ization, but in making possible the application of 
the Golden Rule to strong and weak nations 
alike. Some people prate about a league of 


112 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


nations as if its purpose were to force their sons 
to fight across the seas. But when there was 
no league of nations our boys were forced across 
the seas to engage in a fight which is said to have 
had its origin in a disagreement about pigs. 
Servia became enraged because Austria dis- 
criminated against her in favor of Hungary in 
the shipment of pigs. Whether this is accurate 
or not, we know that the immediate occasion of 
the war was about a little piece of pig-headed 
royalty. In more than 3,000 years of recorded 
history all were years of war except 237 years. 
This happened without a league of nations. No, 
the sole purpose and that which will be the re- 
sult of a just league of nations is to prevent war, 
It is your Triple Ententes and Triple Alliances 
and secret diplomacy which constitute the hot- 
bed in which the war spirit thrives. These are 
the entangling alliances which Washington was 
able to foresee. To make a misapplication of 
‘‘entangling alliances’? marks a man not only 
as a standpatter but as a hopeless reactionary 
who uses the past not for a guidepost but for a 
hitching post. Practically every argument used 
against the Constitution and federation of the 
States has been repeated against any form of a 
league of nations. 

We are confronted by a dangerous reaction in 
the realm of the spirit, in the realm of an un- 
selfish idealism. Human nature is so weak that, 


THE GOLDEN RULE 113 


when it reaches a high level, we begin to look 
for a moral slump. It is a long descent from 
the heroic spirit of our soldiers who went forth 
with the watchword, ‘‘America for the world,” 
to the motto of some politicians of to-day, 
‘“‘America for herself first, and last, and all the 
time.’’ | 

We can but hope that a large number of our 
people, very good people, are passing through 
only a transient mood of selfishness. 

We must share our wealth with other nations. 
We must share our knowledge with other na- 
tions. Mexico needs missionaries and school- 
teachers far more than our jingoism and guns. 

We must share our power with other nations. 
We must make it impossible for one nation to 
pounce upon another without incurring the op- 
position of the rest of the world. Since the rest 
of the world would have to share the injurious 
effects of a war between even two nations, the 
rest of the world ought to be able to say whether 
it is going to happen or not. 

The United States is under obligation to the 
extent of her power to see to it that another war 
shall not happen. It is not worth while to in- 
dulge in the unprofitable speculation of whether 
another war could be justified, but we are to 
set ourselves steadfastly against the further re- 
currence of the military mania. 

We must loathe war and hate war, and strip 


114 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


it of all its falseness and glamour and let it 
stand forth in its unveiled hideousness. 

‘“«War 

I abhor, 

And yet how sweet 

The sound along the marching street 

Of drum and fife, and I forget 

Wet eyes of widows and forget 

Broken old mothers and the whole 

Dark butchery without a soul.’’ 


War is not the gay color, the rhythmic move- 
ment, the thrilling sensation of the military 
parade. War is murder, blood, agony, death 
and hell. War is murder of innocent women and 
children. War means physical mutilation and 
indescribable pain and death. ‘‘Its heroisms are 
but the glancing sunlight on a sea of blood.’’ 

War robs the future. The financial cost of 
the war was $337,000,000,000. This is enough 
money to have built a schoolhouse and a church 
within reach of every human being in the world, 
with a large surplus left for various benevo- 
lences. About 14,000,000 soldiers were killed. 
No one can estimate what this means, in the de- 
struction of genius, art, literature, statesman- 
ship, and religious leadership. All the years 
of all ages of human history have had to do with 
the making of every man. The loss is great and 
irreparable. He who kills a nightingale not only 
kills a nightingale, but all the nightingales that 
would have descended from this nightingale, and 


THE GOLDEN RULE 115 


which would have made melody through the 
years. That which kills a man not only kills a 
man, but all future descendants who would have 
added their wealth to the world. War kills the 
best, the strongest, and the most heroic. Mil- 
lions of children living have been cheated out of 
a father’s care and a child’s chance in the 
world. 

Dr. S. Parkes Cadman arraigns the false glori- 
fication of war. ‘‘The drill sergeant outdid the 
scholar and the cleric. The coarse, second-rate 
sentiments of junkers, bureaucrats, chauvinistic 
officials and journalists menaced the good will 
of nations. Few great thinkers or prophets re- 
ceived a thousandth part of the attention given 
to the ravings of militarism. Invocation to bat- 
tle, and the triumph of the sword as the pass- 
port to all that honorably befits nations, were the 
stock tenets of nationalistic barbarism. Even 
the poetry and the drama of our yesterdays are 
full of hacking and hewing; of gold-braided uni- 
forms, blood, and gunpowder. They are grossly 
brutal, painfully monotonous, without a ray of 
human interest or sympathy to lighten the black 
shadows of their adoration of physical force. To 
butcher the foe is a heavenly enterprise, sanc- 
tioned by Churchmen who repealed the Sermon 
on the Mount for the sake of State Conquest and 
State Worship. These travesties upon Chris- 
tianity registered the actual situation in Europe. 


116 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Her fate and that of half the world besides lay 
in the hands of a dozen men more suited to the 
tastes of Tamerlane than to civilized rulers. 
They had their day; then the seething volcano 
exploded, and now they have their night, which 
should be a long one. For us the weightiest con- 
clusions are: first, that an international condi- 
tion which could permit so stupendous a crime 
against the race was a negation of God; and 
second, that it is the inescapable obligation of 
Christians, and of all sane and moralized people, 
to prevent a repetition of the crime.’’ 

The Churches should speak out in the name 
of the Prince of Peace. General Bliss has said: 
“If another war like the last one should come, 
the professing Christians of the United States 
will be responsible for every drop of blood that 
will be shed and for every dollar wastefully ex- 
pended.’’ 

1. There is the practical defense of war from 
the standpoint of profits. If our nation should 
stupidly stumble into another war, I want the 
first gas attack to be turned on the munition 
makers, bloated profiteers, jingo politicians, and 
commercial exploiters who hitherto have kept 
their full paunches out of the danger zone and 
made their purses full. I do not want anybody 
killed, but we would be prepared to part from 
these men with fewer regrets than any other 
class of citizens. 


THE GOLDEN RULE 117 


2. There is the theoretic defense of war on the 
part of certain theologians. 

There is the theory of a erude Adventism 
which glorifies war as fulfilling’ prophecy and 
as being a herald of the approaching end of the 
world. They readily resign themselves to any 
amount of bloodshed, if they are allowed to in- 
terpret it as the fulfillment of some obscure 
prophecy. They have no hope for the world 
except in a kind of celestial militarism in which 
Jesus will be a Super-Kaiser. 

There is again the preacher of the extreme 
individualistic type who holds to the inevitabil- 
ity of war until everybody is regenerated. This 
is a consummation devoutly to be wished, but 
the application is absurd. 

They have in reality no hope for the cessa- 
tion of war. It is the blackest pessimism to hold 
that war is a permanent institution. The eccles- 
iastical Bourbon, like the poor, is always with 
us. The Bourbon or junker type of mind never 
forgets anything that is old, nor learns any- 
thing new. Yes, they do forget some things, 
for duelling, slavery, and polygamy were once 
declared permanent institutions. 

The ecclesiastical Bourbon only thinks that he 
thinks, and when he thinks that he is thinking, 
he is only making a rearrangement of his prej- 
udices. He is in a worse situation than Rip 
Van Winkle, for Rip did wake up. 


118 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


We are to war against war, not with the 
nerveless Hamlet, who said, 


‘‘The time is out of joint, O, cursed spite, 
That ever I was born to set it right,’’ 


but rather in the spirit of the militant soul of 
Rupert Brook as he sailed for Gallipoli: ‘“Now, 
God be thanked who has matched us with this 
hour.’’ 

In the fine sentence of James, ‘‘We are to find 
the moral equivalent of war.’’ 

William James in his essay on ‘‘The Moral 
Equivalent of War’’ says: ‘‘War represents 
the strong life. Militarism is the great pre- 
server of our ideals of hardihood. The warlike 
spirit has been bred in the bone. Man is a fight- 
ing animal. The military feelings are too deeply 
grounded to abdicate their place until better sub- 
stitutes are offered.’? James proposes as a sub- 
stitute social service. Dr. Samuel McCrea 
Cavert claims that a world missionary enter- 
prise is the only task big enough and universal 
enough in its appeal to take the place of war. 
There is a uniqueness in the expression of Mr. 
James, but the idea itself is in a very old Book, 
where we are exhorted ‘‘to war a good warfare’? 
and ‘‘to fight the good fight of faith.’? Milton 
says to Cromwell: ‘‘Much remains to conquer 
still. Peace hath her victories no less renowned 
than war.’’ 


THE GOLDEN RULE 119 


Prof. Francis G. Peabody gives these strong 
words: ‘‘It is a brave thing to be a soldier; but 
may it not be a still braver thing to bea Saviour? 
It needs a still greater courage to take the sword 
of the Spirit. Ought not the time then soon 
come when the application of the fighting in- 
stinct to the brutalities of bloodshed will be rec- 
ognized as a base prostitution of one of the 
noblest traits of human nature, from which real 
men will turn with disgust to the real wars of 
creative tasks; and when the famous names of 
warfare will be not those of great generals who 
have depopulated hostile lands, but of the greater 
generals who have directed the armies of science 
and healing, of public service and the ameliora- 
tion of life, to beneficent and codperative ends? 
The instincts of militarism cannot be destroyed, 
but they can be fulfilled, and the victories of the 
battlefield may be supplanted by that self-effac- 
ing and creative heroism which shall have the 
right to sing the hymn of triumph, ‘Thanks be 
to God, who giveth us the victory through our 
Lord Jesus Christ.’ The spirit of militarism 
must be converted to the spirit of service and 
the battles of the future won by the sword of the 
Spirit.’’ 

The moral equivalent of war is to be found 
in both a world-wide missionary enterprise and 
also the multiplied forms of service for human- 
ity. There must be the evangelization of those 


120 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


who are without the gospel and the Christian- 
izing of human relationships. 

We are to disregard the cheap sneer of ex- 
treme individualism at Christianizing relation- 
ships. Philemon, the master, and Onesimus, the 
slave, both became Christians. But the relation- 
ship between master and slave was never Chris- 
tianized until the slave became free. 


IV 


This leads me in the last place to state some- 
thing of what I conceive to be the true idea of 
Christian perfection, that perfection which puts 
into practice the Golden Rule and carries out 
the duties and obligations of personal relation- 
ships. There are men of saintly lives, the latchet 
of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose, who 
hold what appears to me to be very imperfect 
ideas of perfection. 

No subject has been discussed with such im- 
perfection of method and spirit as Christian 
Perfection. Men have fussed about it and quar- 
reled over theories and displayed a very imper-. 
fect temper. Men have come to hate each other 
over a difference of opinion concerning perfect 
love. 

There has been the failure to recognize the dif- 
ference in religious temperament. There has 


THE GOLDEN RULE 121 


been the effort to cast various temperaments 
into the same mold. 

There has been the mistake of seeking support 
for a theory in the theology of some of the 
fathers, rather than in the Scriptures and in the 
teaching of Jesus. 

Controversialists have quoted the Methodist 
fathers differently according to their own bias 
instead of appealing to the Word of authority. 

There has been the mistake of dealing in the 
abstract rather than in the concrete, in intro- 
spection rather than personal interrelationship. 
There results a morbidness and an ingrowing 
conscience. Men have theorized about the first 
blessing, the second blessing, the third blessing, 
the inbred sin, the Adamic taint, the remnants of 
the old man, and have indulged in an introspec- 
tive analysis. 

We are on the right road to perfection, when 
we get out into the free open air of personal re- 
lationship and rightly relate ourselves to God 
_and to our fellow men. | 

Christian progress comes through bringing 
more and more of our acts under the sway of 
the Christian spirit and more and more persons 
under the influence of our expression of that 
spirit. 

Bishop F. J. McConnell writes: ‘‘The New 
Testament teaches an ideal of perfect life like 
that of God himself. And the struggle for the 


122 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


ideal is to find itself not only in inner sanctifica- 
tion but in outer goodness of conduct. God 
sends rain and sunshine upon the evil and the 
good. Even-handed impartiality is one of the 
works of the perfection of God; and the implica- 
tion of the New Testament teaching is that it is 
characteristic of the goodness of God that he 
recognizes and acts upon obligations to all men, 
good and bad. If we can imagine a sphere of 
relations to men which would be indifferent to 
God, we might have valid excuse for stopping 
outside of some circles of human contact, as if 
these were religiously indifferent to us. The 
New Testament doctrine of entire sanctification 
is that we are to carry the sanctifying spirit into 
all departments of life. If we draw lines be- 
yond which we will not go, we must recognize 
that we are Christians only up to those boundary 
lines.’’. 

In the connection in which Jesus enjoins per- 
fection, he is speaking of perfection in love and 
is laying stress upon the personal relationships 
of life. 

There must be an extending sway of the spirit 
over widening and deepening relationships. 
There must be a growing love for God. There 
must be a growing love for people and a grow- 
ing love for more people. In the circle of hu- 
man relationships, love must be deepened and 
widened. 


THE GOLDEN RULE 123 


As to the matter of a profession of perfect 
love it will relieve you of presumption to leave 
the question of that attainment to a more im- 
partial judge. A brother was making extrava- 
gant claims in an experience meeting. A brother 
in the audience said to one by his side: ‘‘ Well, 
I can’t say that.’? The reply was: ‘‘Oh, go on 
and say it; that is all he did.’’ 

When Jesus says, ‘‘Be ye perfect, even as 
your Father which is in heaven is perfect,’’ he 
is speaking of perfection in love and is laying 
stress on the personal relationships of life. 

Life’s highest reach is in the realm of per- 
sonal relationships. Life’s highest power is 
exercised in the realm of personal relationships. 
We have felt the strengthening and sanctifying 
influence of a stalwart human character, and this 
transforming power reaches its consummation 
on our personal relationship to Jesus Christ. It 
is for persons, not for abstract ideas, that the 
heart hungers. The incident is given of a little 
girl who was left in her bed upstairs, as her 
mother kissed her good night and went down for 
the evening. To the child, afraid to be left alone, 
the mother said: ‘‘But, dearest, you are not 
alone. Your doll is here, and then you know that 
God is always with you.’’ The child answered: 
‘‘Yes, but even if I have my doll, and even if 
God is here, I want somebody with a skin face.’’ 


124 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Browning puts in David’s song to Saul the 
same wistful longing: 


“‘Tis the weakness in strength, that I ery for! my flesh, that I 

seek 

In the Godhead! TI seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be 

A Face like my face that receives thee ; a Man like to me, 

Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this 
hand 

Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ 
stand!’ 


Life can only be perfected by carrying the 
Christly spirit into human relationships, in the 
family, in the Church, in the State, in social life, 
and among members of other races and other 
nations. All of these multiplied relationships 
are God’s wondrous mill for turning out the fin- 
ished product. 

They constitute his gymnasium for the build- 
ing up of character. There is the mistaken no- 
tion of a good life apart from these relation- 
ships. But the hermit who has tried to work 
out his salvation in loneliness of life has found 
more delusions and devils besieging his mind 
than all the human beings put together. 

Men are prone to make the complaint that if 
it were not for some human beings they could 
get along first rate. 

As well might the fish complain that it could 
swim if it were not for the water. Ags well 
might the bird complain that it could fly if it 


THE GOLDEN RULE 125 


were not for the air. These human relation- 
ships with the spirit that does the Christly thing 
are absolutely necessary for completing human 
life. 

It is only with other human beings that we 
can practice the Golden Rule. 

‘It is the Golden Rule of Christ that will 
bring in the golden age of man.’’ 


CHAPTER VI 
ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 


I 


A practicaL obedience to the principles of 
Jesus Christ is an expression and at the same 
time an evidence of a vital faith. 

It makes no difference how orthodox you are 
if that is all. ‘‘The devils believe and tremble.”’ 
You may believe that Jesus said ‘‘Love your 
enemies’? and never practice it. 

You may believe in the atonement of Jesus 
Christ and never suffer for one sinning soul. 
You may accept the incarnation and yet never — 
incarnate a single distinctive principle in your 
own life. You may believe that God doeth all 
things well and yet do nothing well yourself. 
There are those who allow the worship of the 
Son of God to take the place of following the 
Son of God. 

The controversy as to which is more impor- 
tant, doctrine or life, creed or conduct, has a 
similarity to the question as to which is more 


necessary, air or water. It may be said once for 
126 





ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 127 


all that the man who underestimates the value 
of doctrine falls into the mistake of ignoring the 
vital relation between belief and conduct. Jesus, 
in picturing the final judgment scene in Matthew 
xxv., lays stress on practical service. However, 
those who won his approval evidently had faith 
in God and in their needy fellow men as children 
of God. 

Doctrine is important, because it is important 
to believe the truth and because it was the mis- 
sion of Jesus to bear witness to the truth. 

The element of faith, however, does not in- 
volve perfection in the definitions and technicali- 
ties of a system of doctrine. It is doubtless true, 
as has been well said, that if all Christian men 
for the next twenty years would give up the at- 
tempt to explain Christ and devote their atten- 
tion to following him, at the end of that time 
they would know more about the person of Christ 
than they had ever known before, and they would 
have put Christianity in a position to conquer 
the world. 

The common attitude toward the Bible is too 
largely sentimental. There are plenty of peo- 
ple who are ready to heap upon the Bible empty 
compliments. They make their boast of the 
Bible and glory in the land of the open Bible, 
while their Bibles remain closed. They abuse 
the Roman Catholic Church for withholding the 
Bible from the people, while they own a Bible, 


128 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


but do not read it. People consider it an ap- 
propriate marriage gift, an excellent lesson book 
for children, a good book to read to the sick, 
a good book to preach from in the pulpit, and a 
beautiful ornament for the parlor. People are 
ready to defend the Bible, but in the rush of 
modern life they do not read it. Men call it 
God’s book and divine, but they repeat but empty 
terms if they do not bring to bear upon it their 
powers of thought and study. The great mes- 
sage of God’s revelation is crowded out with 
every other sort of literature. There are men 
who never touch a Bible except when they take 
an oath in a law court. There are women who 
never touch the Bible except when they dust it, 
or transfer it to another table or shelf. 

The Bible does not need our defense, but we 
need the defense which it will give us amid life’s 
perils. John Ruskin has said to his own English 
people: ‘‘You are all shrieking now with one 
voice because you hear of your Bible being at- 
tacked. If you choose to obey your Bible, you 
will never care who attacks it. It is just because 
you never fulfill a single downright precept 
of the Book that you are so careful for its credit; 
and it is because you don’t care to obey the whole 
words that you are so particular about the let- 
ters. The Bible tells you to dress plainly, and 
you are mad for finery; the Bible tells you to 
have pity on the poor, and you crush them be- 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 129 


neath your chariot wheels; the Bible tells you to 
do judgment and justice, and you do not know 
nor care to know so much as what the Bible 
word justice means.’’ 

There is a mutilation of the Scriptures on the 
part of certain traditionalists that is as inde- 
fensible as the method of radical critics. <A 
Church editor writes: ‘‘Each man’s real Bible 
is the amount of the Bible that he is trying to 
live. What he knows, simply to dispute over 
with other folks who do not read the book ex- 
actly as he does, has no Bible value to him. 
What he sees to be livable and what he honestly 
wants to put into practice, that is surcharged 
for him with the veritable inspiration of God. 
And he can make a bigger Bible for himself 
with a surer inspiration if he will search the 
Scriptures for more and more that he can tie to 
and live by.’’ 

It is a fearful mutilation of the Bible when 
a man, whatever may be his theory, practically 
excludes the Golden Rule. The man who refuses 
to live according to the principles of the Ser- 
mon on the Mount has been guilty of a danger- 
ous elimination. What shall be said of the man 
who mutilates the Scriptures by practically ig- 
noring ‘‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self.’? There are rabid traditionalists who 
stickle for the letter and become violent in their 
language against all legitimate investigation and 


130 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


leave completely out the thirteenth chapter of | 


Corinthians. Without any compunction they cut 
out the a’monition concerning ‘‘Speaking the 
truth in love.’’? They do not speak the truth 
and do not speak in love. The man who elimi- 
nates truth and love from the Divine Revelation 
is cutting the heart out and is guilty of a fatal 
mutilation of the Scriptures. 

Beyond any question the Bible teaches us to 
love the truth and not to be afraid of it and to 
cultivate the spirit of love. If you are not going 
to hold to the heart of the Scripture and practice 
it, then you have no use for any of it. We may 
best understand the word by doing the word. 
There is wonderfully illuminating power in a 
good deed. We can really understand the high 
command, ‘‘Love your enemies,’’ only as we 
practice it. We can never understand ‘‘It is 
more blessed to give than to receive’’ unless 
we practice it. We can find out the fullness of 
God’s will only as we do his will up to our under- 
standing. The good will is a wonderful inter- 
preter of God’s requirements, because it is 
willing to do them. The hearer of the word who 
is not a doer of the word is a forgetful hearer, 
and ‘‘forgets what manner of man he is.’? ‘‘He 
that willeth to do his will shall know the doc- 
trine.’’ 

The use of the true method of interpretation 
which involves the intellect, the sensibility, and 


ee eo 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 131 


the will, results in a sane interpretation of the 
Holy Scriptures. Thus the true method of in- 
terpretation frees the Bible from hurtful mis- 
understandings and perversions, removes stumb- 
lingblocks out of the way of Christian faith, and 
gives more light to the sacred page, making it 
radiant with the Divine Presence. 

Just before President Harding passed into the 
new life, in almost his last address to his fellow 
men, he uttered these memorable words: ‘‘I tell 
you, my countrymen, the world needs more of the 
Christ; the world needs the spirit of the Man 
of Nazareth. If we could bring into the rela- 
tionships of humanity, among ourselves and 
among the nations of the earth, the brotherhood 
that was taught by the Christ, we would have a 
restored world; we would have a new hope for 
humanity throughout the globe.’? Would you 
have an infallible guide, one on whom you can 
always depend? Then accept Christ as the Way. 
Make his teachings, his life, and his abiding 
spirit your guide, and you will become living 
testimonies to the truth of his promise. ‘‘I am 
the light of the world; he that followeth me shall 
not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of 
life.’’ 

The real test of the Christian life does not con- 
sist in profession, or creed, or Church atten- 
dance, but in doing the will of God as revealed 
in Jesus Christ. One of my revered teachers 


132 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


when in London went to hear Spurgeon and 
was curious to know his method of dividing his 
topic into propositions. 

After announcing his text Mr. Spurgeon said: 
‘‘T wish to discuss three propositions from the 
text. First, before coming to church: ‘Laying 
aside all wickedness and superfluity of naughti- 
ness.’ Second, while at church: ‘Receive with 
meekness the engrafted word, which is able to 
save your souls.’ Third, after leaving church: 
‘Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, 
deceiving your own selves.’ ”’ 

It is easy to look pious and feel pious while 
at church. I have often wished for a picture of 
a congregation at church. They would look like 
a group of angels. But how about the following 
week when they mix up with the rough and 
tumble and pell-mell affairs of everyday life? 

It is easier to die for the faith than to live for 


it. St. Paul tells us that a man will die for the ~ 


faith without the high motive of love. 

There is the meditative and mystic element in 
religion. The wealth of motive power springs 
out of faith in the Spiritual and Supernatural. 
There is the divine side of what God, through 
Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, can do for you. 
There is the contrasted conception of what you 
can do for God. It is only the practical Chris- 
tianity that gives strength and sanity to reli- 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 133 


gious faith and prevents it from being or becom- 
ing an idle dreaminess and a vague mysticism, 

The test of character is in what we do. In 
the ‘‘Merchant of Venice’’ Portia says: ‘‘If to 
do good were as easy as to know what were good 
to be done, chapels had been churches, and poor 
-men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good 
divine that follows his own instructions. I can 
easier teach twenty what were good to be done, 
than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own 
teaching. The brain may devise laws for the 
blood, but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree.’’ 

There is the story of a gentleman who was |. 
traveling in Hngland, and who was sitting on 
the box with the driver of a coach. He observed 
that one of the horses seemed to be shirking his 
part of the work. He remarked to the driver: 
‘¢That horse does not seem to draw much.’’ The 
driver said: ‘‘Not an inch, sir.’’ He replied: 
‘Why then do you have him?’’? The answer 
was: ‘‘Well, you see, sir, this is a four-horse 
coach, and he counts for one of them.’’ Some 
people are counted who do not contribute any- 
thing of real service to the Church. : 

In contrast with this, Mr. Beecher while rid- ~ 
ing with a friend observed that one of the horses 
was doing most of the work, showing much spirit 
and a dogged perseverance. He then remarked 
on this fact to the driver, who replied: ‘‘Yes, 
he is doing more than he should.’? Then Mr. 


134 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Beecher added: ‘‘ Well, I wish that horse was a 

member of my Church.’’ 

_ There is no place in the Church for the shirker, 
hardly any for the jerker, but urgent call all 

the time for the sure and steady worker. 

The final art in the cultivation of a Christian 
character is practice. That practice makes per- 
fect is true in the religious realm. Theories alone 
can get us nowhere. 


We learn to walk by walking— 

We learn to swim by swimming— 

We learn to fly by flying— 

We learn to paint by painting— 

We learn to write by writing— 

We learn to sing by singing— 

We learn to teach by teaching— 

We learn to speak by speaking— 

We learn to typewrite by typewriting— 

We learn bookkeeping by keeping books— 

We learn business by carrying on business— 

We learn to play on a musical instrument by playing on it— 
We learn to cook by cooking— 

We learn to skate by skating— 

We learn law by the practice of law— 

We learn medicine by the practice of medicine— 
We learn to drive an automobile by driving one— 
We learn agriculture by farming. 


How little does technical knowledge avail us 
in all these achievements. 


We learn religion by doing the will of God.) _ 


We come to know Jesus Christ as we practice 


Tie at ln a 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 135 


his spirit of love and kindness and self-sacrifice 
and unselfish service. 

The most common and fatal form of unbelief 
is not unbelief in God, in Jesus the divine 
Saviour, in the immortality of man, but unbelief 
in the practicability of the principles of Jesus 
Christ. We have too many Churchmen who do 
not believe that we can do as Jesus Christ com- 
mands us and endeavor to make reparation by 
substituting orthodoxy for obedience. Mr. 
Moody was accustomed to saying that some peo- 
ple are so much taken up with what they are 
saved from that they fail to realize what they 
are saved for. We are more willing to accept 
Jesus Christ as Saviour than we are to obey him 
as Lord. A careful writer calls attention to the 
fact that in the twenty-seven books of the New 
Testament the word ‘‘Saviour’’ occurs only 
twenty-four times, while the word ‘‘Lord’’ is 
found 675 times. Jesus emphasized his Lord- 
ship: ‘‘Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye 
say well; for sol am.’’ ‘‘If any man serve me, 
let him follow me.’’ ‘‘If a man love me, he will 
keep my Word.’’ 

‘‘Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, 
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he 
that doeth the will of my Father which is in 
heaven.”’ 

‘‘TInasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 


136 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto 
me.’’ 


‘<And so the Word had breath and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds, 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 
More strong than all poetic thought.’’ 


IT 


Inevitable injury results from a failure to obey 
the words of Christ. 

There results injury to the intellect. In the 
long run it is to become skeptical. The final sol- 
vent of doubt is not thinking, nor feeling, nor 
praying, but doing the will of God. 

Jesus said: ‘‘If any man will do his will.”’ 
The strict translation is, ‘‘If any man willeth to 
do his (the Father’s) will, he shall know of the 
teaching.’’ The organ of spiritual knowledge 
is not the cultured mind, but the obedient will. 
There are certain spiritual truths which we know 
to be true, because we have lived them into cer- 
tainty. 

““We know as much as we do,’’ was the motto 
of St. Francis of Assisi. 

If we obey the principles of Jesus, then, amid 
the perplexities of the faith, ‘‘ Light shall arise 
out of darkness.’’ 

We cannot silence our doubts by thinking; we 
eannot find God by searching, but we can do his 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 137 


will and then we shall know his doctrine. We 
keep in his presence by doing his will. Obedi- 
ence clears the mind. Psychology reaffirms this 
idea of Jesus. 

‘‘That which is unexpressed dies.”’ 

In the realm of mind and spirit, the more you 
give, the more you have. 

A dull, lifeless sort of orthodoxy may and does 
exist without obedience, but the true illumina- 
tion of the mind and a vital grip of spiritual 
realities come from doing the will of God. 


‘‘No one could tell me where my soul might be: 
I searched for God, but God eluded me; 
I sought my brother out and found all three.’’ 


To fail to obey is to spoil the emotions. It 
is to fall into a passive sentimentalism. Balzac 
said: ‘‘It is a perilous thing to separate feel- 
ing from action, to have learned to feel rightly 
without acting rightly. Feeling is given to lead 
to action. If feeling be suffered to awake with- 
out passing into duty, the character becomes un- 
true.’’ 

Hamlet was written to show us how any soul 
will miss its best and truest self and how the life 
must suffer shipwreck when the passion for mus- 
ing and meditation never allows the truth it 
knows or the emotion it feels in high moments 
to pass into action. Hamlet is the fascinating 
but pathetic illustration of how disastrous to the 


138 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


soul and to the world is the separation in the 
same man of the dreamer from the doer, the 
thinker from the worker, the man of meditation 
from the man of action. 


It is easy for the highest mind to make — 


thought and feeling ends in themselves. 


‘¢ And the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.’’ 


Men of this type do not do anything, because 
they always see two ways of doing it. They 
stand meditating at the crossroads. The con- 
nection between the motive power and the opera- 
tive faculties is lost. The engine is fired up, but 
the machinery stands still. Every person at 
some time has known and felt enough truth to 
have saved him. But a man lives on truth only 
by doing it. 

There are people who feel very sensitively 
for the poor, the ignorant, the suffering, and the 
sinning. 

Thousands of people look upon an imaginary 


picture of guilt, wretchedness, and sorrow on > 


the pages of fiction or the stage of a theater, 
and think they are very pious because they can 
weep. They weep copious tears over the imagi- 
nary sorrows of imaginary characters who never 
had an existence outside of a novelist’s imagina- 
tion and have no helpful concern for real living 
human beings of flesh and blood and nerves. It 





ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 139 


is all a sorry sentiment., The emotions are 
spoiled. The sensibilities become hardened 
through inactivity and disobedience. The finer 
impulses are aroused, and when not given ex- 
pression, they die. 

There are people who welter in a sea of senti- 
mentalism and substitute well-wishing for well- 
doing. A lady once said to me: ‘‘I know there 
is one good thing about me—I am _ tender- 
hearted. I never sit down with my husband to a 
good dinner on Sunday—and he will tell you ex- 
actly what I am telling you—but that I say to 
him that I wish somebody else had some of this 
dinner, and I sometimes call their names. I 
never buy for myself a new hat—and my hus- 
band will tell you this is true—but I say to him 
that I wish some other lady—and I sometimes 
call her name—had one just as fine.’’ 

It is a mushy sentiment which loves everybody 
and everything in general and nobody and noth- 
ing in particular. 

There are many who sail on a shoreless sea of 
sentimentalism and arrive nowhere. 

In a weak way they wish everybody well, and 
sigh over the sorrows of the wide world, from 
naked savages of the jungles to the hardly less 
savage denizens of city slums. 

But they take it out in well-wishing. Their 
kind sentimentalism soothes them into a deadly 
slumber. 


140 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Through a failure to practice the principles 
of Jesus, the will is weakened and the backbone 
of the personality is separated from the fore- 
head. 

In spite of what we know—and what we feel 
—we may fail through inertia of the will. . 

The development of spiritual character calls 
for continued exercise as in the development of 
the physical powers and senses. These physical 
faculties can only be cultivated by exercise, 

Do as much of the will of God as is plain to 
you. Be true to the duty you know. Treat your 
fellow man as an immortal being. Live your- 
self as an immortal, and faith in immortality 
comes easy. 

By obedience to Jesus Christ, religious doubt 
is removed. 

Personal enmity is removed as you set your 
will in the direction of good toward your enemy. 
Speak to your enemy. Speak as well of him as 
you can. Pray for your enemy. Act out the op- 
posite of your feeling and your feeling becomes 
transformed. This is in accordance with the 
Scriptural injunction, ‘‘If thine enemy hunger, 
feed him.’’ 

Greed is removed as you act against it. Do 
the generous thing that you do not want to do. 
Cut through the grain of your nature. Act out 
the impulses that belong to your best moods and 
your best moments. 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 141 


Unfortunate emotional states are removed by 
active obedience. You can nurse your grief and 
brood over it, but how much better it is to minis- 
ter to others in sorrow and forget your own 
grief. Bear the burden of another and you 
lighten your own burden. Comfort others in 
their sorrow and you lessen your own Sorrow. 
It is a kind of spiritual arithmetic in which 
addition means subtraction. Mr. Bright, the 
famous Englishman, gives an account of a visit 
of Mr. Cobden. Mr. Bright says: ‘‘I was in the 
depth of grief, almost despair; for the light and 
sunshine of my home had been extinguished. 
All that was left on earth of my young wife, ex- 
cept the memory of a saintly life and of a too 
brief happiness, was lying still and cold in the 
room above. Mr. Cobden called and, after ex- 
pressing words of condolence, said: ‘There are 
thousands of homes in England at this moment 
where wives, mothers, and children are dying of 
hunger. Now when the first paroxysm of your 
grief is past, I would advise you to come with 
me and we will never rest until the Corn law is 
repealed!’ ’? The result of this partnership 
was felt by thousands of the grateful poor over 
England. 

You are to dispel from the spirit the two dark 
demons of grouchiness and gloom, by active obe- 
dience. ‘‘If ye know these things, happy are ye 
if ye do them.’’ 


142 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Act, if necessity calls for it, against the feel- 
ing. Carry out the agreeable and pleasant part. 
If you see an enemy, cross the street to shake 
hands with him—no, that will not be necessary, 
as you always meet him on the same side of the 
street. 

Do the hard thing you are afraid to do and 
learn how to go will-foremost in doing the will of 
God. 


Tit 


Complaint is made that the ideals of Jesus 
are expressed in words that are visionary and 
impossible. The messages of Jesus are clothed 
in the language of the Orient, which is always 
highly figurative and symbolical. Figures of 
speech flourish with great luxuriousness in the 
East, and it is necessary to distinguish between 
literal and metaphorical expressions. Jesus 
spoke many words which he did not intend for a 
moment to be taken literally. 

The Western people are painfully prosaic and 
literal and are prone to misunderstand the words 
of Jesus. Jesus dealt in principles, not in mi- 
nute rules and precepts. 

In his teaching ‘‘primal duties shine aloft as 
stars,’’? but they are embodied in principles 
which are adaptable to all the changes in social, 
industrial, and political life. The literalist turns 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 143 


into an absurdity the words of Jesus. ‘‘But I 
tell you, you are not to resist an injury; who- 
ever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the 
other to him as well. Whoever wants to sue you 
for your shirt, let him have your coat as well; 
whoever forces you to go one mile, go two miles 
with him; give to the man who begs from you, 
and turn not away from him who wants to bor- 
row.’’ 

A sane interpretation determines what Jesus 
meant and discovers principles which the in- 
dividual and society must practice for their own 
safety. His words proclaim principles of eter- 
nal value which we must proclaim and apply to 
life. 

1. Love knows no limit except the limit which 
love itself imposes. Life is to be guided by love, 
and love will not allow that which is not best for 
the other life. To allow some ruffian to strike 
you on one cheek and then turn the other would 
be to encourage brutality. Jesus is certainly the 
best interpreter of his own words, and when 
smitten on one cheek did not turn the other. St. ° 
Paul, when struck on one cheek, did not turn 
the other. 

It violates the principle of love to give to an 
able-bodied beggar, because it increases his lazi- 
ness. Your giving is not withheld through self- 
ishness, but because it would not be best for the 
other man. 


144 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


2. Do not give place to private revenge. Do 
not indulge in retaliation. Do not allow your 
resistance to be prompted by malice. But you 
have no right to give encouragement to wrong- 
doing. If you tolerate physical violence and fail 
to protect the rights of property, you encourage 
the wrongdoer to inflict injustice on someone 
else. There could be justifiable resistance even 
to the point of killing another man in self-de- 
fense. | 

The right to life carries with it the right to 
protect your life against the man who would 
deprive you of life. 

3. Be patient and forbearing under injuries. 
Retain your self-control. It will only hurt you 
to fly into a rage and act hastily. People who 
have little scruple in doing a wrong become en- 
raged and violent when called upon to suffer 
wrong. It is better to suffer wrong than to do 
wrong. This principle runs through all the 
teachings of Jesus. 

4. Do not show disrespect to public author- 
ity. Government is ordained of God. At times 
revolution has been necessary to overthrow gov- 
ernment, but it is to be the last desperate resort. 

5. The spirit of liberty is better than the force 
of coercion. Go the second mile willingly. Rise ~ 
above law into the liberty of love. Let the sense 
of obligation rise to the glory of privilege. Let 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 145 


the freedom of service take the place of con- 
tinued constraint. 

6. Think more of what you may do for others 
than of what others may do for you. The note 
that runs through all the teachings of Jesus is, 
think more of your duties than of your rights. 

Some think of the service others owe them; 
others think of the service they owe other peo- 
ple. This difference is as wide as the difference 
between selfishness and unselfishness, as wide 
as the difference between misery and happiness. 

The people who lay the stress on their rights 
are very sensitive, contentious, continually 
aroused over some offense, real or imaginary, 
and are therefore unhappy. The people who lay 
the stress on their duties and the service they 
may render to others have no time nor disposi- 
tion to become offended. 

As they study how to be useful, happiness in- 
variably comes as a by-product. 

These are the principles of Jesus by which 
men really live. 

Jesus gave to the world permanent principles 
by which men are to live rather than precepts 
which are applicable only to a particular situa- 
tion. Society has moved from the simple to the 
complex since his day, but through all the centu- 
ries the principles of Jesus have proved suffi- 
cient for each particular age. In this day, with 
its intricate social, industrial, and political rela- 


146 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


tionships, the principles of Jesus are practicable — 
and applicable in the solution of our problems. 
All our modern discoveries and inventions, all 
our marvelous increase in all the realms of 
knowledge, all our unprecedented wealth, all our 
pressing social problems have only served to ac- 
centuate the timelessness of the principles of 
Jesus Christ. 


CHAPTER VII 
ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE (Concluded) 


THe goal of the gospel of Jesus Christ in- 
volves both the perfection of the individual and 
the perfection of society. The undue emphasis 
upon a half-truth prevents the proclamation of 
the full gospel. The principles of Jesus cannot 
be dissolved into a thin humanitarianism nor 
narrowed into a strict individualism. 


I 


There are false theories which narrow the 
range of obedience to the principles of Jesus 
Christ, perverted notions which cripple and hurt 
life and hinder progress. There belong to in- 
dividualism in religion certain elements which 
become evil only as they become excessive. 

‘<The worst is the corruption of the best.”’ 

1. There is the form of orthodoxy which is 
rigid and unyielding and which does not hold, 
with the Puritan pastor, that ‘‘New light is to 
break forth continually from the Word of God.’’ 
This kind of orthodoxy is frequently taken as a 


substitute for real Christian service. 
147 


148 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


The priest and Levite were engaged in their 
orthodox religious program, and did not find in 
their scheme of orthodoxy any requirement to 
turn aside and help a wounded man. It is a 
curious psychological fact that the intolerant 
doctrinaire is nearly always cruel. Another has 
said: ‘‘Zeal for doctrine can make a devil of a 
man as truly as zeal for rum-running—and no 
amount of church-going or money-contributing 
can atone for killing a woman’s child with tuber- 
culosis for the rents of an unsanitary tenement 
or giving it the rickets with adulterated food- 
stuffs.’’ 

The assumption of extraordinary piety and 
doctrinal soundness should certainly be accom- 
panied by a Christian spirit. No man possesses 
a vital faith in Jesus Christ unless he is true 
to the Spirit of Jesus Christ. It should go with- 
out saying that we must all strive to be orthodox 
according to the real significance of the word. 
We should give no encouragement to an indefin- 
ite faith or a senseless warfare against creeds. 
But some things are to be remembered. First, 
your supposed orthodoxy may be at wide vari- 
ance from the correct opinion. Second, if our 
orthodoxy were entirely true, there is no saving 
power in correct opinion. 

A writer makes the quotation, ‘‘It is impos- 
sible to imagine that the devil has any erroneous 
opinions.’’ When we inquire for the author of 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 149 


the expression we find that he is no less a per- 
sonage than John Wesley. ‘‘The devils believe 
and tremble.’’ There are some people who fall 
below this: they believe and do not tremble. 
Their orthodoxy falls below that of the devil in 
correctness of opinion, but they share his cruel- 
ty in holding to an orthodoxy without brotherli- 
ness and a religion without love. 

Nothing has ever been so cruel in all history 
as religion without love. It resulted in the cruel 
massacres on the Eve of St. Bartholomew. The 
orthodox Church threatened to burn the miser- 
able heretics who claimed that the earth moved 
around the sun. The Arminianism of the Metho- 
dists was a deadly heresy. Fitchett, in his life 
of Wesley, tells of an old Calvinistic minister to 
whom one said, ‘‘Would you not cut the throat 
of every Methodist you could find?’’ The old 
man blazed with fury, ‘‘ And indeed did not Sam- 
uel hew Agag in pieces before the Lord?’’ 

Back of this were the terribly orthodox Judai- 
zers who hounded St. Paul to his death, and back 
of this was the orthodox Jewish Church that 
nailed Jesus Christ to the cross. 

‘*By the light of burning heretics 
Christ ’s bleeding feet we track, 


Toiling up new Calvaries ever, 
With the cross that turns not back.’’ 


There is the outcropping in our day of the 
same old spirit of persecution which, if it could, 


150 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


would use physical torture. Let us earnestly 
strive for real orthodoxy and at the same time 
beware of a so-called orthodoxy which is with- 
out the milk of human kindness. 

To revert to a question that has been raised, 
what is the explanation of that cruel element in 
the religion of some people that leads to the ex- 
clamation, ‘‘O religion, what crimes are com-’ 
mitted in thy name?”’ 

It may be said by way of some extenuation 
that these cruelly religious people are striving in 
a mistaken way to preserve what they believe to 
be elements of value. 

Again there is a fear which becomes frantic 
and easily passes into hatred. 

Again there is an irritation which springs 
from the unconfessed suspicion of the weakness 
of their position which leads these religious peo- 
ple into a violent antagonism against all who do 
not pronounce their shibboleths, and an antago- 
nism which manifests itself in general accusa- 
tions, which is willing to dispense with all rea- 
son and argument. 

Our only safety to-day is in the apostolic in- 
junction, ‘‘Prove all things; hold fast that which 
is good.’’ 

2. There is the abiding peril of ecclesiasticism 
which is closely connected with the foregoing. 

The Church is a divine institution and an in- 
dispensable factor in human society, but when 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 151 


it becomes an end in itself it is a harmful eccles- 
iasticism. It then loses sight of men in a system 
and is occupied with ecclesiastical machinery. 

Every departure from established ecclesiasti- 
cism has come through a vision of wider service 
for men. By love alone does the Church justify 
her existence, a love that has the note of suffer- 
ing in a compassionate search for the lost, and 
a note of joy when the lost are found. The one 
sin that received the brunt of the rebuke of 
Jesus was the sin of inhumanity. 

His fierce condemnation of the Pharisees was 
for their inhumanity. The essence of sin is love- 
lessness. There are the Churchmen who place 
first humanity and the truth, and the Churchmen 
who place first ecclesiasticism and tradition. 
These are two continuing types. 

The prophet stands first of all for the truth. 
The priest stands first of all for the institution. 
The prophet would modify the institution to har- 
monize with the truth. The priest would modify 
the truth to harmonize with the institution. The 
prophet with his primary devotion to the truth 
would save both the truth and the institution. 
The priest with his primary devotion to the in- 
stitution would destroy both the truth and the 
institution. To follow the prophet is to pre- 
serve the institution which he loves. To follow 
the priest is to destroy the institution which he 
idolizes. There is the continued conflict between 


152 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


ideas and institutions. Thought refuses to be 
stationary; and when institutions refuse to 
change, war is the consequence. 

There is no question as to which will win out 
in the long run. 

A feature of lifeless ecclesiasticism is sacra- 
mental and ritualistic observances which narrow 
the range of obedience by being made a substi- 
tute for a helpful ministry to one’s fellow man. 
This, according to the prophet Isaiah, is to turn 
‘‘the solemn meeting into iniquity.’’ This, ac- 
cording to Jesus Christ, is to neglect ‘‘the 
weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, 
and faith.’’ 

Another element in the peril of ecclesiasticism 
is the false dualism of the sacred and secular, 
which ignores a wide range of duties outside the 
so-called sacred. 

An emphasis is given to the sacred by creat- 
ing in contrast a whole realm of the secular in 
which the principles of Jesus are not supposed 
to be applicable. This is to make common and 
unclean that which God has sanctified. An in- 
dividualistic philosophy turns industry and busi- 
ness into a selfish realm, where it is supposed 
that the Sermon on the Mount was never in- 
tended for application, and gives rise to the 
mottoes, ‘‘ Don’t mix business with religion’’ and 
‘*Business is business.’’ 

3. There is the religious mysticism, where the 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 153 


-worshiper shuts himself off from the human in 
rapt contemplation of the divine. This religious 
temperament is cultivated in the atmosphere of 
asceticism. Dr. F. G. Peabody writes: ‘‘The 
defect of mysticism is not its emotional exalta- 
tion, but its emotional isolation.’’ In our ex- 
ceedingly practical age we are in sore need of 
the cultivation of mystical fellowship and com- 
munion with God. We need to restore the lost 
art of meditation. .A measure of mysticism 
could well replace much of our fussy activity. 
Mysticism is only harmful when the mystic en- 
deavors to become so absorbed in God as to for- 
get his mission to human society. 

Much of this exaggerated individualism can 
be traced to an individualistic interpretation of 
the Scriptures, based on the allegorical or 
spiritualizing method which was much in vogue 
a generation ago. The social revolt of the 
Israelites against their oppressors in Kigypt was 
turned into a picture of the escape of the in- 
dividual soul from the Egypt of his sinful bond- 
age into the promised land of Canaan. In the 
Parable of the Good Samaritan, as related by 
Jesus, the man who fell among thieves is a type 
of the human soul. The thieves are the devil 
and his angels, while Jesus is the Good Samari- 
tan who commits the rescued soul to the Church 
to be cared for until his second advent. 

This was a very comforting interpretation to 


154 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


the individual who did not care to be disturbed 
over the misfortunes of his neighbor. 

With all that may be reasonably and Scrip- 
turally urged against the false individualism of 
life, we are not to lose sight of the primary im- 
portance of life’s individuality. 

When Jesus came he put one life against the 
world: ‘‘What shall it profit a man, if he shall 
gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”’ 
He tells us that the good shepherd will leave the 
ninety and nine and seek for the one lost sheep, 
and that there is joy in heaven over one sinner 
that is saved. He tells us in effect that which is 
so hard for some people to believe, that man was 
not made for the Sabbath, for the Church, for 
the State, but that the Sabbath and the Church 
and the State were made for man. He places 
the authority of the renewed individual life 
against traditions, customs, precedents, and ex- 
ternal rules. 

The reconciliation of the individual and so- 
cial idea is to be sought. Society has witnessed 
hurtful extremes. The French Revolution, 
growing out of the excessive individualism of 
Rousseau, shattered society into atoms. At the 
other extreme is China with her ancestral wor- 
ship, India with her caste system, Egypt with 
her priestly class, pressing down all individual 
peculiarity and power, and these civilizations 
were unable to stand. The same contrast is 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 155 


found in the Church. It was the aim of the 
Roman Catholic Church to solidify the world 
and the Church into a hard and fast uniformity, 
and ring the death knell of the individual. The 
dynamite which blew up this false solidarity was 
the religious experience of Martin Luther when 
he arose from his knees and exclaimed, ‘‘The 
just shall live by faith.’? Whatever in the 
Church or State tends to dwarf the individual 
is at enmity with the highest social order. 

If the individual is not developed to the high- 
est and to the utmost, he can never render the 
best social service. The ideal solidarity can 
only be constructed out of ideal individuals. You 
cannot build a marble palace out of mud. Faith 
creates two intuitions: that of liberty by which 
the soul possesses and asserts itself, and that of 
love by which the soul gives itself to others and 
enters into communion with them. True individ- 
uality is saved from anarchy and made social 
by love and sympathy. We see how the individ- 
ual and social idea are perfectly correlated in 
the fullness of revelation. Baptism is individ- 
ual. The Lord’s Supper is social. In the great 
commandment love to God is individual, love to 
man is social. St. John stresses eternal life, 
which is individual, and the Synoptists the king- 
dom, which is social. In the first chapter of the 
last book of the Bible the perfect individuality 
is revealed when we are all kings and priests 


156 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


unto God, and in the last chapter of this last 
book the perfect social life is found in the ideal 
city of God. 

Jesus Christ manifests his divine wisdom 
when he tells us in substance that when we make 
the most of the individual, then we can make the 
best of society. 

To fail in the highest spiritual development of 
the individual is to lay the ax at the root of the 
tree of the highest social service. 

You cannot construct an ideal social order out 
of sorry individuals. We are not to be obsessed 
by the high-sounding pretensions of an unspirit- 
ual humanitarianism which is only walking on 
feet of clay. 


II 


The demand of the principles of Jesus has to 
do both with personal salvation and with the 
spiritual and social welfare of other people. The 
first question, ‘‘What must I do to be saved?”? 
must be followed by, ‘‘What can I do to save 
others?’’ 

Bishop Gore of Oxford said: ‘‘I have con- 
stantly sat down bewildered before the blank 
and, it seems to me, simply stupid refusal of the 
mass of Church people to recognize their social 
duties. Why on earth is it? What produces 
this strange blindness of heart and mind? Often 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 157 


have I tortured my mind trying to find an an- 
swer to those questions, and tortured it in 
vain.’’ 

We find an explanation in the words of Dr. 
W. A. Brown: ‘‘In nineteenth-contury Protes- 
tantism there grew up a conception of Christ- 
tianity, in principle largely self-centered and in- 
dividualistic. The energies of Christians found 
sufficient outlet in the preparation of the in- 
dividual for life after death, and the winning of 
new candidates for the citizenship of the future 
kingdom. Not transformation of the world, but 
escape from it, became the Christian message; 
not social leadership, but protest, the function 
of the Church.’’ 

There are two sets of qualities which belong 
to Christ’s ideal of character and life which 
stand in contrast, but which should not be sepa- 
rated. They may be described on the one hand 
as the self-regarding qualities and on the other 
as the outgoing qualities. The self-regarding 
qualities refer to personal morals, such as hon- 
esty, temperance, truthfulness, and chastity. 
The outgoing qualities are Christian love, serv- 
ice, and self-sacrifice. The requirement of per- 
sonal morals is assumed, of course, as of abso- 
Inte necessity. Jesus placed emphasis on the 
outgoing qualities which men are prone to over- 
look. This marks the decided difference be- 
tween the righteousness of Christ and the ordi- 


158 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


nary conception of righteousness. There are 


Church people who congratulate themselves on 
being without reproach in personal morals. But 
if we fail in these outgoing qualities we cannot 
win the approval of Jesus, however correct our 
private morals may be. 

Many of the people whom Jesus condemned in 
scathing terms for their meanness, their unkind- 
ness, and their selfishness were people whose 
private morals were above reproach. There are 
women who in personal morals are as chaste as 
the snow on the mountain summit, but who are 
cold and unfeeling and unhelpful. A large num- 
ber of Church people to-day are devoid of any 
sense of social responsibility. They go the 
round of their ceremonies and small activities 
with a complacency which ignores the fact that 
thousands of adults and thousands of children 
are, in practical effect, spiritually doomed by 
their physical wretchedness. A small portion 
of the professing Christian people, with the out- 
going qualities of love, self-sacrifice, and service, 
with the wealth in their possession, with the 
scientific knowledge and agencies available, 
could bring a new hope and a new life to multi- 
tudes of starved and stunted lives. 

How often we act as though unselfishness and 
sacrifice were only a sort of extra adornment of 
Christian character instead of being the very 
warp and woof of it. 


a, ee 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 159 


There is a wide gulf between our easy-going 
attitude and the passion with which Jesus taught 
and lived the law of self-sacrifice. The Church 
is entirely right in her insistence upon personal 
morals, and needs to be more insistent. But 
the widest departure from the leadership of 
Jesus Christ is our failure to live and stress 
these vital outgoing and permeative qualities of 
the Spirit of Christ. 

Obedience to Jesus Christ has a far more 
searching application than many of us have been 
accustomed to think. Are we able to stand the 
test? 

‘‘Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, 
and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, 
who built his house upon a rock: and the rain 
descended, and the floods came, and the winds 
blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: 
for it was founded upon a rock. And everyone 
who heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth 
them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, 
who built his house upon the sand: and the rain 
descended, and the floods came, and the winds 
blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and 
great was the fall of it.’’ 

We are fond of berating for his folly the man 
who in a theoretical unbelief denies the divine 
authority of Jesus. Jesus calls that man fool- 
ish who in practical unbelief ignores his author- 
ity. The condemnation of Jesus rests upon 


160 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


orthodoxy without obedience. ‘‘Not every one — 
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into 
the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the 
will of my Father which is in heaven.’’ 

The worst foe to the Christian faith is practi- 
eal infidelity. Christian people must dare to 
practice the principles of Jesus. Then we shall 
have the reign of love, then the lion and the 
lamb will lie down together, and the lamb will 
not be inside the lion. 

Dr. Joseph A. Vance writes: ‘‘Then the land- 
lord will befriend his tenant instead of fleece 
him. Then the theologian will contend earnestly 
for the faith once delivered to the saints, but he 
will contend like a saint and not like the devil. 
Then the clothing manufacturer will turn his 
sweatshop workers into a happy family—‘the 
sucking child will play on the hole of the asp.’ 
Then Christ will get his chance to show what he 
can do to heal the hurt of this poor old world; 
for men will no longer cloak cruelty under his 
name, but practice brotherly kindness. For then 
religion will be more than a flawless creed and 
a beautiful ritual; it will be a life, a life that 
takes its spiritual ideal not from public opin- 
ion, but from Jesus himself; and then that life, 
the only light of men, will get a chance to ‘light 
every man that cometh into the world.’ ”’ 

Bishop W. F. McDowell says: ‘‘For my part, 
I have no question as to one of the deadliest 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 161 


doubts prevalent in our time. It is the doubt as 
to the practicability and possibility of life at 
Christ’s level. We are eager to be active and 
useful, bound to be orthodox if it takes all the 
shibboleths that can be quoted. We are strong 
on historic Christianity and weak on practical 
Christianity. We loudly assert the deity of 
Christ as a doctrine and then go on with per- 
fectly ordinary, conventional emotions, deci- 
sions, and lives.’’ 


Tit 


Where shall we find the motive power that 
shall make us strong for the obedience which 
Christ requires? How shall power come into our 
frail lives which shall enable us to practice the 
principles of Jesus? : 

There is the threefold motive power, for my 
own sake, for the sake of other people, and 
for the sake of Jesus Christ—and these three 
are one, for the dynamic spirit of Jesus belongs 
to all these motives. 

1. I should identify myself with Christ in his 
ministry to men for my own sake. In Christ I 
find the unity of my own life. The mark of the 
unchristian life is that life is divided and its 
different forces are in conflict. Life can only 
be at its best when it is unanimous. In obedience 
to Christ the conflict will cease between the will 


162 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


and affections, between conscience and conduct, 
between the desires and aspirations and the 
thoughts and feelings. 

In obedience to Christ, you enter into a bless- 
edness of life. The blessedness of life follows 
the wholeness of purpose, ‘‘For me to live is 
Christ.”’ 

The perfection of life is to be found in obe- 
dience to Christ. ‘‘Ye are complete in him.’’ 

I owe it to myself not only to unify life, not 
only to add blessedness to life, not only to com- 
plete life, but to give continuance to my life. It 
has long been a matter of controversy as to 
whether the human soul is inherently immortal 
or conditionally immortal. 

Whatever may be said of immortality of ex- 
istence, we are confident that immortality of life 
is conditional. We shall enter into eternal life 
only as we live a life in obedience to Christ that 
is worth perpetuating, only as we live the eternal 
life here and now. 

After all, why should I wish to continue a life 
unless it is worth continuing? Why should there 
be an idle wish to perpetuate a life that is not 
worth prolonging? Why should any man wish 
the perpetuation of his life through all eternity, 
when it is not even worth perpetuating here? 
If you have nothing to do but kill time here, how 
about the wholesale murder of killing an eternity 
of time? There are people who do not know 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 163 


how to fill a day with useful service. Will you 
then offer them the rolling ages without end? 

It is only in Christ that we live a life which 
is worthy of being immortal. 

2. I am to live in obedience to the principles 
of Jesus for the sake of other people. 

There are the wide wastes of human woe and 
wretchedness which need relief. There is the 
need of enlightenment for the darkness of ig- 
norance. There is the deepest of all human 
needs, the need of man as a sinner for the 
Saviour whom you are to make known to Him. 
The Christian life is to be as salt, purifying and 
preventing the spread of corruption. The 
Christian life is light shining in a dark place, a 
light which men most need in the darkness of sin 
and sorrow. 

George Campbell, one of the greatest of 
Christian men, who devoted his life largely to 
the work of temperance reform, once adminis- 
tered the severest rebuke on a public platform. 
An avowed atheist, who had spoken before him 
in the interest of temperance, appealed to the 
strength of the human will as being sufficient 
for overcoming the appetitie for drink and re- 
ferred to the uselessness of any aid outside a 
man’s will. In a contemptuous side remark he 
said: ‘‘The man who invented gas has done 
more for the human race than all the preachers 
of Christianity.’? When Campbell arose to ad- 


164 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


dress the meeting he said: ‘‘I have been inter- 
ested to hear my friend’s opinion of what bene- 
fits humanity. If to-morrow I should be plunged 
into sorrow, or should find myself approaching 
the end of this brief life, I would desire some 
preacher of the Cross to tell me again its story 
for my comfort and strength. I suppose that 
my friend under similar circumstances would 
send for the gas-fitter.’’ 

In the midst of a sinning world, your life is to 
show the possibility and reality of victory 
through Jesus Christ over evil without and with- 
in. In the midst of a suffering world your life is 
to show to men the comfort of Christ’s words, 
‘‘Let not your heart be troubled.’’ In the midst 
of a world that is mad for greed of gain, your 
life is to show to men the unselfish spirit of 
Christ and a supreme valuation for humanity 
and the things that are eternal. In the midst of 
a world that is amusement crazy, feeding on sen- 
sations and novelties, your life is to show to men 
the contentment which comes from the hidden 
wealth of the Spirit. In the midst of a world 
that is lawless and disobedient, you are to show 
to men the power of self-control and the glory 
of the obedient life. In the midst of a world with 
its bitterness and enmity, you are to show to 
men that ‘‘Love which beareth all things, hopeth 
all things, and endureth all things.’’ 

In the midst of a world with its selfish ambi- 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 165 


tions and thirst for human praise, you are to 
show to men the meekness and lowliness of spirit 
which seeks the commendation of God. In the 
midst of a world that has lost its way, you are 
to reflect the light of Him who is the Light of the 
World. 

In the midst of a discouraged world you are 
to show the invincible hopefulness of life. In 
the midst of a world with its restlessness and 
tempest-tossed confusion, you are to show to men 
the restfulness, the serenity, the peace, and the 
Joy which Jesus left as our inheritance. 

In the midst of a world where so many are 
bruised and broken by the brutal forces of self- 
ishness, where multitudes of children are not 
#o much born as doomed into the world, you are 
to be the champions of a new social order that 
will give an opportunity to the submerged among 
us who have not the ghost of a chance in life. 

In the midst of a world where the weak are 
the victims of the oppression of the strong, we 
are to interpret our own life’s mission in terms 
of the life mission of Jesus himself. 


‘<The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; 
Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; 
He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, 
And recovering of sight to the blind; 
To set at liberty them that are bruised, 
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.’? 


It is only through obedience to Christ that 


166 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


your life can bring this strength to the weak- 
ness of the world. 

Is it not worth being a Christian to be able 
even in a measure to give forth a radioactive 
energy like this? 

It is only through Christ that we can bring 
most help to men. There must be the upward 
look and the downward reach. 


‘©O strengthen me that while I stand, 
Firm on the rock and strong in Thee, 
I may stretch out a loving hand 
To wrestlers with the troubled sea.’’ 


3. I am to live in obedience to the principles 
of Jesus Christ for his own sake. This is the 
motive which permeates and elevates the other 
motives. 

‘‘He loved me and gave himself for me.”’ 

‘The love of Christ constrains us.”’ 

‘‘Tf a man love me, he will keep my words.’’ 

‘‘We love him, because he first loved us.’’ 

‘‘But for Christ’s sake I have learned to 
count my former gains a loss; indeed I count 
anything a loss compared to the supreme value 
of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. For his sake 
I have lost everything. I count it all the veriest 
refuse, in order to gain Christ.”’ 

In the State of New York a few years ago a 
young girl, Susie Parker, heard the call of God 
to give herself to missionary work in China, un- 
der the administration of Hudson Taylor. At 


ee eee 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 167 


the farewell meeting the father spoke of his 
daughter and her going away, closing with the 
words, ‘‘All I can say is, I have nothing too 
precious for Jesus.’’ After the work of a few 
months, in which many were won to Jesus Christ, 
Susie Parker fell a victim to typhoid fever. In 
reply to a letter from Hudson Taylor telling of 
her useful life and triumphant death, the father 
wrote: ‘‘In the midst of my heartbreaking 
grief and desolation, I can only repeat what I 
said when my daughter went away, ‘I have noth- 
ing too precious for Jesus.’ ’’ 

There is no more pathetic and sublime picture 
in all the history of saintly lives than that of 
Mrs. Judson standing in the doorway of her 
home by the sea in Burma, watching the ship 
sail away that was carrying her children to 
America for their education. The long-dreaded 
hour had come. She must be separated for many 
years, if not for life, from her children, to stand 
by her husband in his work. 

With many long and tender farewells she had 
bidden them good-by, and the great steamer had 
turned her prow to the open sea. The almost 
broken-hearted mother stood and watched the 
vessel until, through the mist in her eyes, it had 
ceased to be even a speck on the distant horizon, 
and then, turning into her room, she sank into a 
chair and exclaimed: ‘‘All this I do for the 
sake of my Lord.’’ 


168 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


A missionary gives us a chapter out of his 
experience: 

When I was serving in India as a medical missionary a great 
epidemic of smallpox broke out and all the ‘‘white people’’ fled; 
but because my wife and I both were immune we remained, 
ministering to the sick and dying thousands. 

One morning as I walked toward the village from our little 
residence I found in the path the most awful looking thing 
in the way of humanity that I have ever seen. He was in the 
last stages of that fearful disease; but because he was still 
alive, and for fear lest some beast of burden would trample 
him, I carried him out of the way and poured some water from a 
near-by stream into the foul mouth and went my way. That 
evening, as I returned, I found the rotting thing was still alive; 
and when on the morrow it still lived, I made a little broth and 
brought emollients and it lived. 

At last it opened its eyes and I saw that the sight had not 
been destroyed, so I gave it food and ‘‘it’’ again became a 
living man. A few mornings later, as I came with some fruit 
and food, he was gone—gone without a ‘‘ Thank you,’’ and I 
returned discouraged to my wife and said: ‘‘He left without 
one word of gratitude, and he was nearer death than any man 
I ever saw.’’ She replied: ‘‘We did not come out here for 
thanks, but for souls.’’ 

Eighteen months went by and India, freed from her epidemie, 
was gorgeous in her livery of green. Health and happiness had 
returned, as far as it was possible there, when one morning 
there strode into the residence a swarthy giant whose pockmarked 
body shone with sweat in the morning sun. Over his shoulder 
was the most beautiful elephant tusk ever seen in that part of 
India, while by his side hung a little leathern bag of Himalayan 
gold. He laid them at my feet and said, ‘‘I go get more.’’ 

My heart was touched and I said to him: ‘‘T did not do 
what I did for you in the hope of a reward.’’ 

‘<Then why did you do it?’’ 

‘‘T did it for Jesus’ sake, for the sake of my Saviour, and 
yours, who came from Heaven and lived and died that we might 
be saved from our sins and have peace and joy in our hearts.’’ 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 169 


His giant body trembled and, dropping on his knees at my 
feet, he cried: ‘‘O white man, white man, show me HIM—Show 
me HIM.,’’ 


No vague sense of human brotherhood, no 
soft sentiment of humanitarianism can put the 
spiritual morale into a man’s heart for a service 
like this. It is only the motive that springs from 
a response to the love of Jesus Christ for us 
that can maintain us on the high level of heroic 
and self-forgetful service. We shall respond 
to the urgent call of Christ to grapple with the 
pressing duties, when the need of humanity is 
greatest, where the night of human wretchedness 
is darkest, where the wild waves of human woe 
are most relentless, only as we draw the strength 
of our motive power from Christ who is our 
Lord and our Saviour. 

A young college student was persuaded by his 
mother to visit an art gallery where a fine paint- 
ing, ‘‘The Man of Galilee,’? was being shown. 
The young man had no artistic taste and was 
not much interested in the gallery. After gaz- 
ing at the picture for some moments with in- 
tense earnestness, he started to go out, when 
one of the attendants, who noticed his earnest 
attitude, said to him: ‘‘It is a great picture.’’ 
‘‘Yes, it is a great picture,’’ replied the boy. 
‘And it is well named, ‘The Man of Galilee.’ ”’ 
Then the student went back and looked at it 
again—gazed upon that face until his gaze be- 


170 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


came transfixed, and with softened voice he said: 
‘‘Q thou Man of Galilee, if there is anything 
IT can do to help you in the work that you are 
doing in the world, count on me, count on me.”’ 
O, may we all, as we look up into the face of our 
Christ, say it, say it as we have never said it 
before: ‘‘Count on me—count on me.’’ 


*“T said, ‘Let me walk in the fields.’ 
He said, ‘No, walk in the town,’ 
I said, ‘There are no flowers there.’ 
He said, ‘No flowers, but a crown.’ 


I said, ‘But the skies are black; 
There is nothing but noise and din.’ 
And He wept as he sent me back; 
‘There is more,’ he said; ‘there is sin.” 


I said, ‘But the air is thick, 
And fogs are veiling the sun.’ 
He answered, ‘Yet souls are sick, 
And souls in the dark undone .’ 


I said, ‘I shall miss the light, 

And friends will miss me, they say.’ 
He answered, ‘Choose to-night, 

If ZJ am to miss you, or they.’ 


I pleaded for time to be given. 
He said, ‘Is it hard to decide? 
It will not seem hard in heaven 
To have followed the steps of your Guide.’ 


I cast one look at the fields, 
Then set my face to the town; 
He said, ‘My child, do you yield? 
Will you leave the flowers for the crown?’ 


ORTHODOXY AND OBEDIENCE 


Then into His hand went mine, 
And into my heart came He; 

And I walk in a light divine 
The path I had feared to see.’’ 


171 


CHAPTER VIII 
SOCIAL SOLIDARITY 


Tue interrelationship, interconnection, and in- 
terdependence of the varied elements and forces 
of the universe are verified by numerous ex- 
amples. 


‘*Nothing in this world is single; 
All things by a law divine 
In each other’s being mingle.’’ 


‘‘There’s a part of the sun in an apple 

There’s a part of the moon in a rose, 

There’s a part of the flaming Pleiades 
In every leaf that grows.’’ 


The lowliest of things is related to and minis- 
ters to the whole moving scheme. 

The bacteria remove deceased organisms and 
make life possible in the world. They fix nitro- 
gen, so that it is possible that the farmer of 
the future, instead of the present cumbersome 
method in the fertilization of the soil, with a 
small tube of colorless liquid will inoculate the 
soil. 

There are from 50,000 to 500,000 earthworms 


in one acre of land and they pass multiplied tons 
172 


SOCIAL SOLIDARITY 173 


of soil through their bodies and increase the 
productiveness. 

The birds destroy destructive insects and pro- 
tect trees and fruits. If deprived of birds, the 
earth would soon become uninhabitable. 

The flower is so related to the entire universe 
that if we understood the flower we would un- 
derstand the sun 90,000,000 miles away. 


‘*Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies, 
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower—but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is.’’ 


In order to collect enough nectar to make one 
pound of honey industrious bees must go from 
hive to flower and back again 2,750,000 times. 
Then, when you think how far these bees some- 
times fly in search of these clover fields, often 
one or two miles distant from the hive, you will 
begin to get a small idea of the number of miles 
one of the industrious little creatures must 
travel in order that you may have a pound of 
honey. 

The relation of cats to a crop of red clover 
sounds rather remote. But bees fertilize the 
clover, the field mice destroy the bees, and the 
cats destroy the mice—so that the more cats 
there are, the fewer field mice, the more bees, 
and the more red clover. We may go still fur- 


174 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


ther. It is well known that unmarried ladies 
of a certain or uncertain age take special care of 
the cats, so that the more unmarried ladies you 
have, then the more cats, the fewer field mice, 
‘the more bees, and the more red clover. Of 
course, the fewer unmarried ladies you have, 
then the fewer cats, the more field mice, the 
fewer bees, and the less red clover. 

Now it is a very probable supposition that — 
certain sunspots turned toward the earth mean 
unfavorable weather conditions and a bad finan- 
cial year. 

It is a well-known statistical fact that a bad 
financial year means fewer marriages, and then 
certain sunspots would result in a larger number 
of unmarried ladies, and there would be more 
eats, fewer mice, more bees, and more red 
clover. This, however, would be on condition 
that the larger number of bees would help the 
red clover more than the bad weather would in- 
jure the clover. 

There is no attempt to arrange in any logical 
order illustrations of the varied interconnections 
of things that appear unrelated. 

We are prone to regard the dust as worse than 
useless. But it is the dust which gives us the 
blue of the sky and sea, the beauty of the dawn 
and the glory of the sunset, and the diffused — 
daylight. Alfred Russel Wallace says: ‘‘It has 
recently been discovered that dust plays an im- 


SOCIAL SOLIDARITY 175 


portant part in nature, a part so important that 
it is doubtful whether we could even live with- 
out it. To the presence of dust in the higher 
atmosphere we owe the formation of mists, 
clouds, and gentle, beneficial rains, instead of 
waterspouts and destructive torrents.’’ 

The scientific student in his laboratory ap- 
pears to have no contact with practical life. But 
Pasteur discovers the microorganisms that de- 
stroy the silk-worms and brings material pros- 
perity to France. The chemist makes possible 
the steel industry. The scientist, with his dis- 
covery of anesthetics and antiseptics, is very 
closely related to practical life. 

A North Carolina presiding elder who was a 
close observer of country life connects Ford cars 
and eugenics. He says that Ford cars have 
widened the territory of young men and young 
women and enlarged the range of their matri- 
monial choice. In their former limited commu- 
nities, there were more unfortunate marriages 
among those of blood kin, but now Ford ears 
have removed this handicap. 

Thus the interconnection appears between 
Ford cars, good roads, and eugenics. 

Again the value of money depends on the 
interrélationship and interdependence of society. 

What makes your money valuable? Suppose 
that everybody should die to-day and you should 
own the whole earth. 


176 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


The seven ages of man as revised by some- 
one are said to be: First age, sees the earth; 
second age, wants it; third age, hustles to get 
it; fourth age, decides to be satisfied with about 
one-half of it; fifth age, would be satisfied with 
less than half of it; sixth age, now content to 
possess a six-by-two strip; seventh age, gets the 
strip. 

But suppose to-morrow you should own the 
earth, the lands and banks and railroads and 
skyscrapers—if you were alone, you would be 
poorer than the poorest tramp. It is society 
which gives value to your possessions. 

Our lives are inextricably interwoven with 
the lives of others. This interconnection binds 
us with other lives of the past, the present, and 
the future. 

Hach man stands at the center of a vast net- 
work of ancestors. Looking back on the past, 
we see how intimately one life is bound up with 
millions of others. Even physically it has taken 
all the generations from the beginning of time 
to produce us, all the generations of men in their 
crossing and intermingling to make you and 
me. It is estimated that going no further back 
than the Norman conquest, each of us has 16,- 
000,000 ancestors, from each of whom we have 
received some contribution of weakness or 
strength. We, in turn, shall leave some impress 
on millions of descendants. In a little while our 


SOCIAL SOLIDARITY 177 


brief lives will be rounded with a sleep, but what 
of the generations that follow who shall be made 
stronger or weaker by the kind of character 
which we possess? 

Of more immediate application, however, are 
our varied relationships with our own genera- 
tion. There is our interrelationship on the ma- 
terial side. The higher the stage of civilization, 
the more complex are the relationships of life. 
‘“We are members one of another.’’? Ex-Presi- 
dent Harris of Amherst College has drawn for 
us the details of one small area of a man’s unes- 
capable membership in human kind. ‘*When he 
rises a sponge is placed in his hand by a Pacific 
Islander, a cake of soap by a Frenchman, a 
rough towel by a Turk. His merino underwear 
he takes from the hand of a Spaniard, his linen 
from a Belfast manufacturer, his outer garments 
from a Birmingham weaver, his scarf from a 
French silkgrower, his shoes from a Brazilian 
grazier. At breakfast his cup of coffee is poured 
by natives of Java and Arabia, his rolls are 
passed by a Kansas farmer, his beefsteak by a 
Texas ranchman, his orange by a Florida negro.”’ 

What is involved in what we eat, wear, spend, 
and use? It means the lone shepherd on the 
mountain side, the weary weaver at the loom, 
the weather-beaten sailor at the mast, the engi- 
neer driving through the storm, the miner in the 
depth of the earth, the fisherman on the foggy 


178 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


coast, the plowman in the furrow, and the cook - 
in the drudgery of the kitchen. 

Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis writes: ‘‘The new 
solidarity of commerce makes war foolish, and 
compels international arbitration.... By ten 
thousand cables and electric threads God is bind- 
ing the nations together in weaving one warp 
and woof—a world people. Physically, Provi- 
dence has distributed his gifts so that no nation 
is a complete nation. He gives wheat to the 
North, cotton to the South, tea and spices to the 
Hast, sugar and coffee to the tropics. No man 
is a full man, because of the distributed intel- 
lectual gifts. God took the ideal man and broke 
him up into fragmentary men, so that they would 
have to unite their gifts through brotherhood to 
produce a civilization just as God broke up the 
light and distributed it in fragmentary stars, and 
then bound the stars together into one cosmic 
system. He gives religion to the Hebrew, law 
to the Roman, culture to the Greek, the love of 
detail to the German, wit and beauty to the 
Frenchman, colonization to the Hnglishman, 
practical invention to the American, mental alert- 
ness to the Japanese, patience to the Chinese, 
endurance to the Russian. The zones have to 
exchange gifts. Insects flit from flower to flower, 
and make harvests possible. Steamships are 
commercial devices of God for fertilizing na-— 
tions into flowers and fruit, carrying honey from 


SOCIAL SOLIDARITY ‘ 179 


one civic cup to another civic bloom. The world 
is the Father’s house, and all men are brothers.’’ 

The social and moral phase of our solidarity 
is freighted with the most portentous conse- 
quences. . 

We have become so obsessed with a strict in- 
dividualism that we have ignored the fact that 
we belong to an indivisible whole, that social 
solidarity is the inescapable law of human life, 
and that if ‘‘one member suffer, all the members 
must suffer with it.’’ 

We have too largely ignored our social obli- 
gations through a miserable individualistic in- 
terpretation of life and salvation. We have been 
too much afraid of an abstract political theory 
of paternalism, but we have not been afraid to 
neglect living, suffering creatures of flesh and 
blood. As someone has forcefully said: ‘‘We 
do most of our thinking below our diaphragms.’’ 
Much of our thinking has been predetermined by 
our self-interest. We are inclined to make our- 
selves comfortable in a smug orthodoxy which 
conceals from us our social solidarity, ignores 
our social obligation, and prevents the develop- 
ment of a social conscience. 

‘*Ts it well that while we range with science, ylorying in the 
Time, 
City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime??? 


‘*There among the glooming alleys progress halts on palsied 
feet, 


180 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Crime and hunger cast out maidens by the thousands on the 


street. 


There the master scrimps his haggard sempstress of her daily 
bread ; 
There a single sordid attie holds the living and the dead. 


There the smolding fire of fever creeps across the rotted 
floor, 
And the crowded couch of incest in the warrens of the poor.’’ 


The privileged class may not be willing to 
place even the tips of their dainty fingers be- 
neath our social burden and they may neglect the 
bruised and broken, but these very weak ones, 
like another Samson, in the blindness of brute 
strength will tear away the very pillars of our 
civilization. We are all in the same boat and 
we are going to sail or sink together. 

We shall lift up the submerged through the 
power of the gospel of Jesus Christ or their 
weight will drag us down. The privileged class 
of France supposed that they could shut them- 
selves off in proud isolation from the unprivi- 
leged; but the red revolution was the negation 
of their folly, when the blood of French people 
ran redder than the purple clusters of French 
vineyards. 

I repeat that we have been so prejudiced 
against any indication of paternalism, and so 
warped in our thinking by certain false ‘‘ortho- 


dox’’ interpretations, that we have allowed idiots — 


to breed with all the prolificness that is charac- 


ae > m 


SOCIAL SOLIDARITY 181 


teristic of them, and have allowed children to 
rot in filth and immoral surroundings and grow 
up in ignorance, without any schools except the 
school of criminality, because we have proceeded 
under the dangerous delusion that parents have 
a divine right to do as they will with their own. 
You may leave these masses of wretchedness and 
festering sores of society alone, but they will 
not leave you alone. Has society no right to 
protect itself? Are we not yet wise enough to 
know that the fierce fires of retribution inevit- 
ably follow all of our selfish neglect? The hu- 
man family is one and cannot be elevated in 
sections. No class can be independent of an- 
other class. There is the pride that desires 
separation, but isolation is impossible. You may 
ignore the ‘‘black bottom’’ of your cities and 
heed not if a neglected negro population live a 
living death in filth and sexual disease, but you 
ean trace the terrible vengeance when you see 
the little white babies that are born blind and 
never see. 

Dickens, the novelist of the poor, told us dec- 
ades ago: ‘‘The poorest man has his revenge on 
the rich, for even the winds are his messengers, 
and every drop of his corrupted blood propa- 
gates infection and contagion somewhere. There 
is not a cubic inch of any pestilential gas on 
which he lives, not one obscenity or degradation 
about him, not one ignorance, nor a wickedness, 


182 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


nor a brutality of his committing, but shall work 
its retribution through every order of society 
up to the proudest of the proud, and the highest 
of the high.’’ 

As a further illustration of this social soli- 
darity, Carlyle gives us the incident of the poor 
widow dying in neglect. ‘‘She took typhus fever 
and killed seventeen of you—very curious. The 
forlorn Irish widow applies to her fellow crea- 
tures as if saying, ‘Behold I am sinking bare of 
help; ye must help me. I am your sister, bone 
of your bone; one God made us; ye must help 
me.’ They answer: ‘No; impossible; thou art 
no sister of ours.’ But she proves her sister- 
hood; her typhus fever kills them; they actually 
were her brothers, though denying it. Had hu-— 
man creature ever to go lower for a proof?’’ 
«If virtue is better than blackest of crime, 

If sunlight is cleaner than foulest of slime, 


Then they that are right must righten the wrong, 
And the weak must be saved by the strength of the strong.’’ 


It is only as the strong save the weak that the 
strong themselves will be saved. 

Dr. Josiah Strong writes: ‘‘Men are seeing 
more and more clearly that their interests are 
not individual and isolated, but common. First, 
men who were engaged in the same industry dis- 
cover that their interests are really one, and 
they organize their unions; then men in different 
but interrelated industries see that they have 


SOCIAL SOLIDARITY 183 


much in common, and different unions com- 
bine; then men see the common interests of all 
labor, and there is a movement toward national 
federation; then they discover the necessity of 
international organization and action. Capital 
has been moving in the same direction. First, 
there was the partnership, then the corporation, 
then the combination of corporations in increas- 
ing numbers and magnitude, until there is de- 
veloped at last a trust as broad as the continent. 
Capital and labor have not yet discovered that 
their interests are really one, that they must 
cooperate like the two wings of a bird; but that 
discovery will come in time, and then they will 
combine.’’ 

Thus we find an unmistakable current in the 
world of thought toward what might be called 
the consciousness of solidarity—something so 
new in kind or degree that it has compelled the 
use of a new word to express it, and we hear of 
the ‘‘solidarity of labor,’’ the ‘‘solidarity of 
society,’’ the ‘‘solidarity of the race.’’ 


iT 


So as we widen our conception we find that for 
better or for worse the whole world is bound to- 
gether and interrelated. 

It is supreme folly to talk of the United States 
retaining a splendid isolation. A League of 


184 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Nations in some effective form must be worked 


out or civilization will go down in the carnage 
and chaos of war. We have a number of politi- 
cians who were born out of due season, about 
five hundred years too late, and they have not 
yet found out that the world is a unit and that no 
member of this world organism can suffer with- 
out all the members suffering. 

Carlyle wrote: ‘‘There is not a Red Indian 
hunting by Lake Winnipeg can quarrel with his 
squaw, but all the world will smart for it. Will 
not the price of beaver rise?’’? The world is so 
woven together by a variety of connecting ties 
that both ideas and diseases are highly conta- 
gious. Spanish influenza rapidly crosses na- 
tional boundary lines and the theories of Rus- 
sian Bolshevism are accepted by many American 
laborers. There are belated politicians who do 
not know the age in which we are living, who 
cannot ‘‘discern the signs of the times.”’ 

We have had quite enough chauvinism and 
jingoism. There must be developed the inter- 
national mind. : 

The blackest blotch on American history is 
the policy of selfish isolation to which our coun- 
try has been committed. 

For many decades a wave of indignation and 
protest has swept over the nation at every re- 
port of Armenian massacres. But when the op- 
portunity was given for America to assume the 


SOCIAL SOLIDARITY 185 


mandate over Armenia the political leaders took 
counsel of cowardly prudence. 

America could have largely prevented the im- 
minent perils that threaten the very perpetuity 
of more than one European nation. The United 
States forgot that she was a debtor to other na- 
tions. She followed the leadership of dema- 
gogues rather than duty. Our nation fell from 
the pinnacle of idealism into the slough of mate- 
rialism. The very material motives which in- 
fluenced our blind guides are proving to be 
against our material prosperity. Prosperous 
America cannot even continue prosperous by a 
policy of national aloofness. The world is so 
knit together and interrelated that no people can 
remain independent of what happens in the re- 
motest part of the world. The appeal of com- 
merce will at last penetrate thick-skinned sensi- 
bilities, where the appeal of conscience failed. 
In the meantime the work of rebuilding a 
wrecked world is arrested. 

But America will be compelled to think in 
terms of world solidarity, even if she does her 
thinking ‘‘below the diaphragm.”’ 


IV 


There is no clearer mark of the oneness of 
Jesus Christ with divinity than his conception 


186 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


of the oneness of humanity. St. Paul followed 

his Lord as the matchless exponent of the Chris- 
tian ideal of the unity of the human race. ‘‘Man 
is renewed into knowledge after the image of 
him that created him; where there cannot be 
Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcl- 
sion, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; 
but Christ is all, and in all.’’ ‘‘He made of 
one every nation of men for to dwell on the face 
of the earth.’’ 

Seneca, a contemporary of St. Paul and an 
outside saint, must have possessed the divine 
afflatus when he said: ‘‘We are members of a 
vast body. Nature made us kin when she pro- 
duced us from the same things and to the same 
ends. I will look upon all lands as belonging to 
me, and my own land as belonging to all. I will 
so live as if I knew that I am born for others, 
and on this account I will give thanks to nature. 
She gave me alone to all men, and all men to 
me alone. I will know that the world is my 
country. Nature bids me assist men. Wherever 
a man is, there is room for doing good.”’ 

The world sympathy of Jesus Christ should 
certainly be the working principle of the Chris- 
tian. Perhaps no man of his generation more 
forcefully expressed the mind of Christ and — 
more sympathetically interpreted his ideal of 
world unity than Charles Cuthbert Hall: 


SOCIAL SOLIDARITY 187 


‘‘The genuineness of Christ’s attitude, as 
representing not theory but conviction, is proved 
by his reverent treatment of humanity, by his 
world-consciousness in teaching, by his vision of 
purpose when advancing to a sacrificial death, 
and when sending, by means of apostolic mes- 
Sengers, to the uttermost bounds of the known 
earth, his gospel of a redeemed humanity. 

‘“‘T can truly say that in intellectual and spirit- 
ual intercourse with certain Orientals, who by 
anthropologists would be classified under several 
different categories, I have felt that human kin- 
ship which scarcely may be described by a term 
less strong than consanguinity of the soul. The 
Churches of the West which have looked upon 
themselves proudly as the dispensers of this re- 
ligion may have mastered its rudiments only. 
The mystery of God in Christ, which was hid 
from ages and generations until the incarnation 
of the Living Word was accomplished in the full- 
ness of time, may contain inner glories as yet 
undreamed of—glories not accessible until the 
eager West consents to sit as a disciple at the 
feet of the ancient Hast, learning through the 
Oriental consciousness to search the deep things 
of God. One cannot divide Hast from West in 
the matter of religious interaction any more 
than in the matter of commercial interaction. 

‘*Tt is not then wholly as the giver, but also as 


188 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


the receiver, that the West is to approach the 
East bearing the gospel of Christ. She is not to 
say, ‘This is the gospel which I know and 
which I teach you,’ but rather: ‘Here is the 
gospel which I know in part, according to the 
gifts and insight of the West. Share it with me, 
O soul of the Hastern world; help us to know 
better, through you, that gospel and _ that 
Christ 3st’ 

Our human life will never be complete, our 
religious faith will never be complete, until each 
man possesses the wealth of all men and all men 
possess the wealth of each man. 

In man’s redemption lies the redemption of 
the whole world, and in the redemption of the 
whole world lies the complete redemption of 
men. 

St. Paul rises to the sublime height of the con- 
ception of the solidarity of the entire creation. 
‘‘Wor the earnest expectation of the creation 
waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God.’’ 
‘‘Wor the creation itself also shall be delivered 
from the bondage of corruption into the liberty 
of the glory of the children of God.’’ Jesus 
Christ as the perfect man sprang ‘‘as a root 
out of dry ground,’’ but perfect humanity can 
only grow out of the spiritual soil of a redeemed 
world. 

Toward this goal has been set the aspiring and 


SOCIAL SOLIDARITY 189 


striving soul of humanity through all the eons 
of its progress. 


‘* Where is one that, born of woman, altogether can escape 

From the lower world within him, moods of tiger or of ape? 
Man as yet is being made, and ere the crowning age of ages, 
Shall not «on after zon pass and touch him into shape? 
All about him shadow still, but, while the races flower and fade, 
Prophet-eyes may catch a glory slowly gaining on the shade, 
Till the peoples all are one, and all their voices blend in chorie 
Hallelujah to the Maker: ‘It is finished; man is made.’ ’’ 


CHAPTER Ix 
THE NEW CRUSADE 


Tuer crusade of to-day is not one of romance 
or sentiment, like that which led the medieval 
Church to rescue the holy sepulcher of the risen 
Christ. It is a crusade whose daring aim is to 
bring the world of humanity under the reign of 
the risen Christ. As we gain some insight into 
the real antagonism and possible achievements 
of the present and future, we see the Captain 
of our Salvation leading in an eightfold crusade 
—the Crusade of Personal Evangelism, Chris- 
tian Codperation, Democracy, Social Betterment, 
National Welfare, Internationalism, World 
Peace, and the Kingdom of God on Harth. 


I 


There is the crusade of Personal Evangelism. 
We must never lose sight amid general move- 
ments of the high spiritual ministry of bringing 
the individual into the relationship of recon-— 
ciliation with God and with his fellow men. 


1. There is the reflex influence of personal 
190 


THE NEW CRUSADE 191 


evangelism on the Church itself. It wins the 
respect of a community for the Church. The 
bootblack can tell you with amazing accuracy 
what the Church ought to do. The world knows 
that if the members of a Church are really doing 
the work of Christ they will be seeking the lost. 

It changes the atmosphere of the average 
Church. Love is the supreme motive that car- 
ries the message. Bickerings, jealousies, quar- 
rels, and petty prejudices cannot live in the 
Church. The spiritual temperature is raised. 
There is the unity of life and warmth, not the 
unity of frozen ice. It will vitalize the worship 
of the Church. The Church member who never 
does anything but listen and absorb will at last 
grow weary of listening. 

There is the effect on the preacher himself. 
When the members give themselves to personal 
evangelism, his preaching catches a fervor that 
is a surprise even to himself, 

The evangelism results in a sane emotional 
life. There are people who simply want their 
emotions stirred, as a matter of spiritual luxury, 
who are willing for a preacher to pour out ner- 
vous energy to stimulate their morbid sensibili- 
ties. If you will go out and live Christianity 
during the week and seek to save some one who 
knows not Christ, you will soon have all the emo- 
tions you need. 

2. To win men to Jesus Christ is both to share 


192 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


and increase your spiritual treasure. You must 
have before you can give. You must know be- . 
fore you can witness. You must possess some- 
thing that is worth passing on. If you know 
Jesus Christ as one who saves you from sin and 
gives you strength and comfort, then you are in 
possession of something that every person with- 
out Jesus Christ needs. The sharing of spiritual 
treasure multiplies the treasure. 

In material things, such as land and money, 
to give means a subtraction. But according to 
the arithmetic of heaven, to share a spiritual 
treasure means addition. 

St, Paul makes a further application of gain- 
ing spiritual riches when he tells us that we 
may enter into a possession of human lives. feel E 
seek not yours, but you.’? This is the instinct 
of property raised to its heavenly quality. We 
are not to fall into the common delusion of de- 
siring what men have rather than men them- 
selves. We have a real ownership in beautiful 
landscapes, in air and light and stars and moun- 
tains. Higher still a man enters into the heri- 
tage of men whom he has won to Christ. We 
have, as Horace Bushnell reminds us, a property 
right in every one we meet, if only we may bring 
to their lives a blessing. He says in one of his 
great sermons: ‘‘In this manner it is given 
us for our beautiful divine privilege to have a 
property in every one we meet, if only we can 





THE NEW CRUSADE 193 


find how to bless them. Owning, we have a field 
where mines richer than those of gold are open 
to us on every side. Going after what men have, 
we get nothing; after men themselves, a prop- 
erty that is everlasting.’’ If we go after fame, 
then how transient is the praise of man, ‘‘whose 
breath is in his nostrils.”? If we seek riches 
and the mere externalities of life, then we meet 
the statute of limitation: ‘‘We brought nothing 
into this world, and it is certain we can carry 
nothing out.’’ All material properties are left 
behind. There is indeed no real estate, but 
spiritual property. Death only brings to perfect 
consummation this ownership. 


IT 


The Crusade for Codperation must supplant 
the philosophy and practice of extreme individ- 
ualism. 

Man alone is a very helpless being in the 
world. He becomes strong by relating himself 
to forces outside himself. Man relates himself 
to natural power in the world and by use of 
steam, electricity, and machinery multiplies his 
own power a thousandfold. 

The religion of Jesus Christ is one of power. 
As we relate ourselves to him and believe on him, 
our own weakness becomes strength and our own 
power is multiplied. 


194 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


1. Man must codperate with man. Along with 


self-preservation, codperation or comradeship is 
one of the strong instincts of the human. The 
small boy said: ‘‘Mother, I wish that I were 
two little puppies, so I could play together.”’ 

Even the huge, ferocious animals that were 
strictly individualistic have lost out while the 
forms of animal life that live in herds and hives 
continue. 

The history of civilization is the history of co- 
operation. The individual Cyclops, however 
huge, was powerless against the feeblest band. 
The tribes that did not know how to cooperate 
were exterminated. The tribes that knew how 
to codperate became a nation. 

2. Codperation is the test of intelligence. 
Some one said to the manager of an asylum, 
where there was a large number of insane peo- 
ple, ‘‘Are you not afraid they will combine 
against you?’’ He replied: ‘‘No. If they had 
sense enough to codperate, they would not be 
here.’’ The idiot (or ‘‘idiotes’’) was originally 
the private man who did not participate in pub- 
lic affairs. In the seventeenth century Jeremy 
Taylor said: ‘‘Humility is a duty in great ones, 
as well as in the idiots.’’ The word comes to 
signify a rude, ignorant, unskilled person, who 
had not been developed by contact and codpera- 


tion with others. It then comes to have its pres- 


ent meaning of one who is seriously deficient in 


THE NEW CRUSADE 195 


intellect. The failure to codperate does not al- 
ways mean lack of intellect or character, but it 
does mean failure to put both of these to the 
best use. 

3. The obstreperous individual may go on the 
assumption, ‘‘I am so much wiser than others 
that I cannot work with ordinary people.” 

Or the person may say in effect, ‘‘I am so per- 
fect myself, I do not know how to work with 
imperfect people.’’ 

St. Paul tells us that the failure to codperate 
is due to two contrasted dispositions. 

First, there is self-depreciation. The foot 
complains because it is not the hand, the ear 
because it is not the eye. So men and women 
fail to be of any use in the Church because they 
think that they do not amount to anything. 

Second, there is the depreciation of others. 
The head despises the feet. The eye thinks it 
has no need of the ear. The eye is such a fine 
creature that it is the aristocratic member of 
the body. But there are many things the eye 
cannot do. It must work with the other mem- 
bers of the body. So St. Paul says in substance 
that there are Church members who refuse to 
work with others because they do not feel good 
enough, and there are Church members who re- 
fuse to work with others for the reason that 
they feel too good. 

4. We are not in the millennium, and perfect 


196 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


cooperation is not to be expected, but it is a nec- 
essary condition of success and progress in both 
Church and State. He is a sorry citizen who 
says that the government of the country or city 
is not being run to suit him, and he will have 
nothing to do with it. He is a sorry Church 
member who says that the church is not being 
run to suit him, and he will have nothing to do 
with it. It is highly important to know how to _ 
give and take, work in a team, and play the 
game. The game of baseball might atone for 
some of its sins if it would teach the Church 
how to do teamwork. The Church would be ex- 
cusable for attending the game in a body if the 
members would learn the lesson of the almost 
perfect codperation of a baseball nine. 

5. Strict individualism is intolerable and im- 
possible. The law of society wisely overrides 
the obstreperous individual. Take, for example, 
a town which has reached a certain state of 
growth. The individualist says: ‘‘My property 
is my own, and I don’t want a paved sidewalk. 
I can do as I please with my own. It is out- 
rageous and unjust to intrude on my liberty.”’ 
But the community says: ‘‘Why so hot, my 
little man? Try to cool off a little; it will be— 
good for your health. You are not living in 
the midst of savagery, but in civilization. Try 
to catch up with the procession, and keep step. 
Remember, please, that it is the whole com- 


THE NEW CRUSADE 197 


munity that makes your little individual posses- 
sion worth anything at all; and if you are not 
civilized enough to codperate, we will make you 
cooperate. ’’ 

Harry Emerson Fosdick writes: ‘‘The old 
age urges that all nations must be armed against 
each other; the new age replies that all nations 
must codperate for the world’s peace. In that 
choice between Christ and Satan, Christians 
have an enormous stake. War in its origin, mo- 
tives, methods, and issues is the most powerful 
anti-Christian influence on earth. But individ- 
ual service alone cannot handle the problem. The 
cooperative organization of all the international 
good will there is, is indispensable.’’ 

This is the truth of Kipling’s lines: 

‘*As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk the law runneth 
forward and back; 


For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of 
the wolf is the pack.’’ 


It is the truth of the inspired word: ‘One 
shall chase a thousand, and two shall put ten 
thousand to flight.”” Two are far more than 
twice as strong as one. 

Perfect codperation can hardly be expected, 
since there are some individuals who are pecu- 
liarly constructed; but it is only as Christian 
people learn to play the game, do teamwork, and 
keep step that we shall accomplish the high tasks 
that are set before us. 


198 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


It was teamwork which at last brought victory 
to the Allied forces in the World War. 


“‘Tt ain’t the guns or armaments, nor the funds that they can 
pay, 
But the close codperation that makes them win the day. 
It ain’t the individual nor army as a whole, . 
But the everlasting teamwork of every blooming soul.’’ 


6. It appears to the long-suffering public that 
the enormous waste from capital and labor con- 
flicts bears every mark of stupidity. The gen- 
eral public is convinced that intelligent men 
ought to be able to come to an agreement that 
will prevent such heavy losses to the parties 
directly concerned as well as the people in gen- 
eral. 

We have no sort of hesitancy in saying that 
we thoroughly believe in organized labor. The 
right of organized labor should be recognized 
as unreservedly as the right of organized capi- 
tal. This right is not disputed to-day except by 
certain belated minds. 

7. It is interesting to observe in what curious 
and commonplace ways the falseness of the old: 
individualism is exposed. Some years ago I was 
in a section of Georgia where the live issue was 
the question of tick-eradication. I was informed 
that if the codperation had been complete the > 
tick would already have become an-tiq-uated. 
The farmers are confident that, despite the an- 


THE NEW CRUSADE 199 


tics of a few who howl for individual rights, the 
cattle will soon be free of this pest. 

We are fully aware that this is a very tick- 
lish subject, but it is entirely too serious to be 
tick-led over. We propose to ar-tic-ulate our 
remarks carefully, with the realization that we 
must be very par-tic-ular in what we say. 

It is passing strange that illustrious political 
agitators have wildly ges-tic-ulated as anti-tick- 
eradicators. So the question entered poli-tics 
and has influenced the mind of the voter as he 
made out his tick-et. None of this strife would 
ever have risen if the tick had been as strict an 
individualist as the anti-tick-eradicator. But the 
tick possesses very neighborly qualities and in- 
sists on visiting. The tick, though not held in 
high esteem, breaks down the theory of individ- 
ualism. Society is re-tic-ulate. Men and their 
interests are interrelated, so that cooperation is 
the common-sense law of life. The man who does 
not believe in codperation should pack up, buy a 
tick-et, and move away from all human society. 

Go to the tick, thou individualist ; consider her 
ways, and be wise. 

Professor Ellwood writes: ‘‘Codperation is 
the inner constructive principle of group life; 
and the wider and more harmonious this coopera- 
tion is, the richer and the more perfect is the 
social life of mankind as a whole. Civilization 
and all its values, then, depend upon the con- 


200 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


tinuance and development of codperation among 
men. Obviously a social religion must aim to 
maximize cooperation, and it will be successful 
in doing this only as it teaches the value of mu- 
tual service.’’ 

8. The Christian Church, with its gospel of co- 
Speration as against competition, may practice 
its own principle, when the wisdom of it has been 
justified in all the other realms of human service 
and activity. The reproach of Protestantism has 
been the weakening division as against the co- 
operative forces of unrighteousness. 

A new spirit, however, is stirring within the 
mighty hosts of Protestant Christianity. We 
are waking to the folly of our more than two 
hundred competing and contending sects, and 
the subdivision has gone to such absurd ex- 
tremes that some of these denominations are 
scarcely more than denominational insects. In 
numerous towns and communities we have a 
situation and attitude like that described in the 
report of a pastor of a certain denomination 
when he said: ‘‘My church is in a fearful con- 
dition. The members are indifferent and fail 
to support the Church. We are dependent on 
a missionary appropriation. The outlook is 
hopeless; but, thank the Lord, the other — 
Churches are no better.’’? The recognition of © 
the fact is being forced upon us that we cannot 
cope with our immigrant problem, our race prob- 





THE NEW CRUSADE 201 


lem, our labor problem, our liquor problem, and 
our social problem unless there is a closer and 
more vital cooperation of Christian Churches. 
The address of Dean Franklin N. Parker, of 
the Candler School of Theology, before the First 
General Council of the United Methodist, Pres- 
byterian, and Congregational Churches of 
Canada will prove to be a notable and historic 
utterance: ‘‘It may be said that the new con- 
ception of the widening claims of social life, our 
responsibilities to men and women and chil- 
dren, and the vital and everlasting needs of the 
poor, the laborer, and the unprivileged class has 
compelled us to think more in the terms of hu- 
manity and less in the terms of formularies and 
symbols. And it is for organized Christianity 
to-day to gather around its Lord and Leader 
and in the might of the new crusade to pledge 
itself not merely to fidelity to the memory of a 
great creed, but a challenge to lead the world 
to do as Jesus did, to practice his imperishable 
ideals, and at whatever cost, and to make the 
nations see that the supreme message of the 
incarnation is reconciliation. As the great 
apostle to the Gentiles states: ‘Now then we 
are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did 
beseech you by us; we pray you, be ye reconciled 
to God.’ Of course, I am aware that in appeal- 
ing to a passage of Scripture such as this some 
may challenge me, urging the fitness of a passage 


202 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


as applied only to the individual. But I cannot 
conceive that this is the only scope of the gos- 
pel message. I think that the very tendency to 
so limit it has stood in the way of the progress 
of the gospel for centuries. 

Once more [I am reminded that the passage 
in St. John where our Lord prays for unity 
refers to a spiritual unity, refers to spiritual 
unity alone, and has no relation to the Church’s 
organic and visible order, but this has never 
seemed convincing to me. It must be true 
that Jesus Christ does make men one; and if 
humanity is humanity and man is man, it ought 
to affect profoundly and in a far-reaching way 
all organized life in whatever capacity or re- 
lationships the social genius of humanity 
demands such organization. To say that the 
spiritual unity is necessarily furthered by 
manifold social division would seem to be an 
inverse mode of thinking. It would seem that 
if we really can, on the basis of our common 
faith in a common Lord, approach each other, 
it would steadily diminish divisive tendencies 
and, by comprehending all that is vital and elimi- 
nating all that is nonessential, come to be more 
united in external organization, and so by a 
great example testifying to the world the unify- 
ing power and fundamental adaptability of — 
Christianity for its work as a universal reli- 
gion.’’ 


THE NEW CRUSADE 203 


We hail with joy the dawning of that good 
day when strife and discord shall die out of the 
world, after having first died out of the Chris- 
tian Church. 


‘‘A sweeter song shall then be heard, 
The music of the world’s accord, 
Confessing Christ the inward word. 


That song shall stretch from shore to shore 3] 
Our faith, our hope, our love restore 
The seamless robe which Jesus wore.’? 


IIT 


There is the ceaseless crusade for Democracy. 

There exists between autocracy and democ- 
racy an opposition so fundamental that all com- 
promise is impossible. Autocracy sets up a gov- 
ernment without the consent of the governed. 
Autocracy professes to rule by divine right, and 
affirms the personal irresponsibility of the king. 
Autocracy claims that man exists for the State. 
Autocracy proceeds by overhead authority. Au- 
tocracy becomes cruel and exercises the policy 
of frightfulness, because too much power is 
lodged in the hands of a few. 

On the other hand democracy, according to the 
well-known words of Lincoln, is ‘‘government of 
the people, by the people, and for the people.’’ 

Again he says: ‘‘No man is good enough or 


204 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


wise enough to govern another man without his 
consent.’’ 

Mazzini says: ‘‘Democracy is the progress of 
all, through all, under the leadership of the best 
and the wisest.”’ 

Lowell says: ‘‘Democracy is that form of so- 
ciety in which every man has a chance and knows 
that he has.’’ 

According to the Declaration of Independence 
it is an equal right ‘‘to life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness.’? The very heart of democ- 
racy is its purpose to give to all equality of op- 
portunity, with the recognition that men are un- 
equal in capacity. The main purpose of Carlyle 
in ‘‘Sartor Resartus’”’ is to show this essential 
equality of man, when stripped of material and 
external habiliments. 

Democracy is the form of society which is in 
harmony with the nature of man and is therefore 
God’s plan of human government. 

Democracy has nothing in common with the 
mad folly of Bolshevism. Bolshevism, like auto- 
eracy, is class legislation and class rule. 

Tt is another case in which extremes meet— 
Bolshevism is autocracy on the part of the ig- 
norant and unwashed and unshaved. Irrespon- 


sible autocracy produces Bolshevism as in Rus- _ | 


sia. Democracy is our only safeguard against 
Bolshevism. Democracy must win its way 


THE NEW CRUSADE 205 


against the opposition of both autocracy and 
Bolshevism. 

Autocracy recognizes no authority beyond it- 
self. Its power is spontaneous, intrinsic, and in- 
herent. It relies on force. It demands isolation 
for safety. It shuts out the vulgar from the 
presence of the would-be-great. Autocrats in 
their own esteem are of bluer blood and finer 
clay than the common people. Autocracy claims 
the right to deceive the people, since in reality 
they have no right to know. If deceiving the 
people leads to a larger measure of security, 
then there is no scruple as to the deception. It 
necessarily leads to cruelty, since aloofness and 
snobbery destroy human compassion. 

In a democracy the masses of the people parti- 
cipate in government. All authority is a trust. 
In practice the many are always ruled by the 
few, but the many claim the right to select the 
few. 

Democracy rests on faith. It believes that 
men may be trusted. It demands equality be- 
fore the law and equality before the bar of jus- 
tice. It results in the dominance of public opin- 
ion over the autocratic notions of a select coterie. 

A necessary element in democracy is a sense 
of duty and responsibility. You cannot make a 
democracy out of people who are forever think- 
ing of their rights and never of their responsi- 
bilities. 


206 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


A recent writer says: ‘‘Democracy has two 
great enemies, the demagogue and the cynic.’’ 
The demagogue inflames the passions and pre- 
judices of men; the cynic denies all possibility of 
progress and improvement. 

Dr. J. H. Snowden writes: ‘‘More and more 
our civilization is exalting the worth of human 
personality from the top to the bottom of so- 
ciety. It is this sense of the supreme value of 
personality that has struck the fetters from the 
slaves, elevated women, and is throwing pro- 
tection around the child. The worth of simple 
personality is being raised above the ancient 
rights of property. It is this that brought 
thrones and crowns crashing down in the great 
war. Democracy asserted itself against despot- 
ism, and personality against brute power. It is 
this value of the human personality that is dis- 
solving and leveling special privileges and so- 
cial distinctions of royalty and nobility and 
wealth and is flooding the world with democ- 
racy.’ 

No less a personage than Jesus Christ is re- 
sponsible for democracy. He exercised the most 
implicit faith in the potentialities of the common 
man. He ignored the external distinctions of 
class and caste. His Church, through all her 
imperfections, has been the one and only organi-- 
zation that has received into her ranks the rich 
and poor, the learned and unlearned, with a peni- 


THE NEW CRUSADE 207 


tent heart as the one requirement of all. It is 
in harmony with the genius of Christianity that 
our government, political and ecclesiastical, shall 
be broad-based on the will of the people. 

Democracy came first in religion in the com- 
mon man’s demand that he shall be his own 
priest before God. It comes next in polities in 
the demand of men that they shall have a voice 
in determining what their government shall be. 
It comes last in industry in the demand of men 
that they shall have something to say about the 
conditions under which they shall work. 

There is the sixfold manifestation of democ- 
racy in State, education, freedom of speech, in- 
dustry, in church, and in religion. 


IV 

Growing out of the Crusade for Democracy is 
the Crusade for Social Betterment. 

The Church with the false individualistic 
philosophy has been responsible for the reeking 
filth of entire communities and the loss of multi- 
tudes of souls. We have dealt in our miserable 
half-truths, which are worse in effect than lies. 
The half-truth is more dangerous than a whole 
falsehood. The half-truth has enough truth to 
give carrying power to the error. 


**A lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright ; 
But a lie which is half a truth is a harder matter to fight.’ 


208 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Take, for example, ‘‘Clean up a man’s soul 
and he will clean up his own premises.’’ It has 
happened in almost numberless instances that 
drunken bums have stumbled into a gospel mis- 
sion, and through the saving power of the gos- 
pel have gone out to live a decent and a religious 
life. Our lopsided individualist then proceeds 
to the fallacy of maintaining that this is to be the 
sole and only method for solving the physical 
wretchedness of people. He is willing to allow 
submerged populations to rot in filth and disease 
and spread their contagion while he indulges the 
half-truth. ‘‘The soul of improvement is the 
improvement of the soul.’? But it is not the sole 
improvement. How manifestly true it is that in 
a large number of instances the total improve- 
ment of the person must begin on the plane of 
the physical; he must be cleaned up before any 
latent self-respect is awakened, and his environ- 
ment must either be changed or he must be 
taken out of his environment. 

It is the inescapable duty of the Church to 
minister in a constructive way and in the way of 
permanent helpfulness to the physical wretched- 
ness of people. Again it is very agreeable to the 
individualistic churchman to ‘‘think below his 
diaphragm’? in order to protect his dividends. 

A true program of social betterment calls for 
a high venture and the risk of high expenditures, 
although in the long run, if the self-interest of 





THE NEW CRUSADE 209 


the individualist were not too blind to see it, it is 
a good financial proposition. 

There should be a strict regulation of the sani- 
tary conditions of tenement structures. The de- 
cent portion of society should say to the great 
unwashed throng, ‘‘Your individual liberty has 
already reached the vanishing point; you may 
not be free, but water is free, and if necessary we 
will furnish the soap, because soap is cheap, and 
there is no such thing as a sanitary room with 
unsanitary people in it.’’ 

The decent part of society should say, ‘‘We 
are not dealing in soft sentiment. If you are not 
willing to clean up, you can exercise the rem- 
nant of liberty that is left you by living out in 
_the open, and we will put your children in health- 
ful surroundings; and we are willing to do this 
because the cost to society will be less than a 
new crop of criminals.’’ 

And at last this will do more than anything 
else to start a real revival of religion among this 
element of our population. 

It will also serve to remove our false fatalism 
in theology that a high death rate is the pre- 
destined provision of an inscrutable Providence. 

Modern science has made clear the direct re- 
lation between physical and spiritual welfare. 
Poor eyesight in the child has been mistaken for 
dullness and indifference. A social worker told 
me an incident of having glasses fitted to the 


210 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


eyes of a little daughter of a factory operative, 
who looked around with an unearthly rapture on 
her face and exclaimed: ‘‘O Miss Nan, I can 
see.’? The presence of adenoids has been mis- 
taken for indwelling demons. 

Bad housing conditions and lack of recrea- 
tional facilities in the crowded sections of the 
submerged have led boys and girls into sin and 
a criminal career, while comfortable churchmen 
solved the problem by an appeal to their Serip- 
tural doctrine of total depravity. 

Bishop C. W. Burns sounds the advancing 
note: ‘‘This is the day for the prophet to be 
the advance herald of the new social order that 
for old heresy proclaims new faith, for old 
mirages of blindness new programs of social 
betterment. With hearts throbbing to the 
reveille of the future, let the prophets of God 
advance. Out yonder where the enemy is in- 
trenched, where social wrongs and industrial in- 
justice are rampant; where life is hurt and 
cramped and crowded; where happiness is 
blighted, where moral purpose is robbed of 


purity, where wretchedness is focused; where — : 


might is braggart and shiftlessness is sullen; 
where vice entices at every corner and is in- 
trenched in the liberty of license; where holy im- 
pulse is stifled, where hope gutters down like a 
candle in its socket, where love is stricken dead 
on altars of devotion; out where tyranny is the 





THE NEW CRUSADE 211 


blight and sarcoma of the race; where Bolshe- 
vism rears its ogre head; where the fight of the 
Kingdom is thickest; where the Christ calls— 
lead on, O prophets of the dawning day.’? 

Jesus Christ is forever the champion of the 


weak. 
‘Therefore he went 
And humbly joined himself to the weaker part, 
So he could be the nearer to God’s heart 
And feel its solemn pulse sending blood 
Through all the widespread veins of endless good.?? 


Vv 


There is the Crusade for National Welfare 
and Unity. 

A distinct contribution in the teaching of 
Jesus was his estimate of men above institutions. 
Not only are the Sabbath and the Church con- 
stituted for man, but the State exists for the wel- 
fare of the people. Since the State, however, is 
composed of people, the ideal of the individual 
citizen is to be the mutual welfare of all the 
citizens. 

There are certain perils which beset us to-day 
against which we must carry on a truceless war- 
fare. 

1. A perennial stream of immigrants pours 
into the United States, which is straining the 
capacity of the melting pot. 

There are in the United States 14,000,000 peo- 


212 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


ple who are foreign born and 22,000,000 of for- 
eign parentage. More than 150 different lan- 
guages and dialects are spoken, and more than 
1,300 foreign-language newspapers are pub- 
Hehed with a circulation of more than 10,000,000. 

There are 2,500,000 adult foreigners He can- 
not speak our language. 

In the process of assimilation there should be 
the requirement that every foreign newspaper 
should carry a parallel column in English. The 
children of foreigners should be compelled to 
learn English. Children readily respond in loy- 
alty to American ideals. The story is told of a 
boy of foreign-born parentage who objected to 
parental chastisement on the ground that he ob- 
jected to being whipped by a foreigner. A fur- 
ther aid to assimilation is the encouragement to 
foreigners to buy property for residence pur- 
poses. The public school and the evangelizing 
work of the Churches are potent factors in the 
process of Americanization. But with all the 
efforts toward assimilation, our government 
should exercise the right of a reasonable restric- 
tion on immigration. 

2. The peril of the liquor traffic should call 
forth the uncompromising opposition of every 
patriotic citizen. The most powerful and un- 
scrupulous foe of our American institutions is 
the organized liquor forces. The basis of this 
power is not in the appetite of the weak individ- 





THE NEW CRUSADE 213 


ual, but in the organized greed of liquor dealers 
who are willing to murder the bodies and souls 
of their victims for gain. With the sophistry of 
personal liberty, they would burden society with 
their wreckage of pauperism, crime, and insan- 
ity. This dragon of darkness must be met by the 
organized forces of the Church, with the reali- 
zation that it is a war to the death and one or the 
other must go down. 

3. Intellectual and spiritual illiteracy is an 
enemy to national welfare and unity. 

In 1920 there were in the United States 4,931,- 
905 illiterates. Six per cent of the entire popula- 
tion over ten years of age had received no school- 
ing whatever. The first draft in the recent war 
disclosed the startling fact that one-fourth of 
the young men called to the colors could neither 
read nor write. Their average mental age was 
about fourteen. 

Of the 42,000,000 children and youth in the 
United States under twenty-five years of age 
who are Protestant or nominally Protestant, 27,- 
000,000 are unreached by the educational pro- 
gram of any Church. The only remedy is in the 
State making school attendance compulsory 
either in public, private, or Church schools, and 
in the Church carrying on a continual erusade 
for new Sunday school pupils, and the fostering 
of higher institutions of learning on which we 
are dependent for instructors. 


214 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


4. There is the growing peril resulting from 
the extremes of wealth and poverty. 

We have too large a number in our country 
who live without working, and too large a num- 
ber who work without living. We have hundreds 
of idle rich who waste far more than would be 
sufficient to feed hundreds who are starving. 
The peril of corporate greed is in producing the 
reaction of wild radicalism and revolution. The 
old Bourbon idea of the sole comfort of the up- 
per class has passed. 

This distinction was expressed in the cringing 
prayer of the poor: 


‘¢God bless the Squire and all his rich relations, 
And teach us poor folks to keep our stations.’’ 


But with the spread of democratic ideals any 
jnequality of human conditions which is the re- 
sult of injustice and the selfish accumulation of 
wealth will prove a constant irritation and dis- 
turbance in our social life. 

Personal values must be placed above prop- 
erty values. John Ruskin was a pioneer in the 
advocacy of this high principle of Jesus when 
he contended that the wealth of a nation is to 
be estimated by the number of healthy, moral, 
and happy human beings who compose it. The 
most neglected child in any back alley or dingy 
street of your city is worth more than all your 
banks and piles of brick and stone. Property 





THE NEW CRUSADE 215 


has its rights, but the rights of humanity must 
take precedence. Human welfare is the first con- 
sideration. The people who are very much dis- 
turbed over a panic which destroys property 
values are able to bear with remarkable resig- 
nation the destruction of human values. 

d. A final weakening influence which may be 
mentioned is the divisiveness of sectionalism. 

It was the irreconcilable hot-heads on both 
sides in our nation who were responsible for the 
bloody strife between brothers. The same kind 
of citizens who try to keep alive the fires of en- 
mity between the sections of our country are 
the same kind of citizens as those who precipi- 
tated the war. 

In a city in one of our most distinctively 
Southern States there is inscribed on a monu- 
ment: ‘‘Forever in the past is sacrifice, in the 
future progress. One hundred years ago the 
men of the North and South fought together. 
One people—No North—No South—A common 
interest—One country—One destiny. As it was, 
so ever let it be.’’ 

The matchless Grady threw out the challenge 
of reconciliation to the North: ‘‘This hour lit- 
tle needs the loyalty that is loyal to one section 
and yet holds the other in enduring suspicion 
and estrangement. Give us the broad and per- 
fect loyalty that loves and trusts Georgia alike 
with Massachusetts—that knows no South, no 


216 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


North, no East, no West, but endears with equal 
and patriotic love every foot of our soil, every 
State of our Union.’’ 

But with all that may be said we must rely 
primarily on spiritual agencies for our national 
welfare and unity. | 

Our own nation could not continue for a decade 
without religion and the Christian Churches. 

I do not wish to give any suggestion of special 
pleading, but no man can be in the truest signi- 
ficance a patriot who does not live in loyalty to 
those religious principles which alone are the 
safeguard of a nation. 

The average American loves to sing: 


‘‘My country, ’tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, | 
Of thee I sing: | 

Land where my fathers died, 

Land of the pilgrims’ pride, 

From every mountain side 
Let freedom ring.’’ 


But the singer is only dealing in the rhythm 
of words unless he can sing in the faith and in 
the spirit: 

‘¢Our fathers’ God, to thee, 
Author of liberty 
To thee we sing; 
Long may our land be bright 
With freedom’s holy light; 
Protect us by thy might, 
Great God, our King.’’ 





THE NEW CRUSADE 217 


Patriotism is not dealing in empty jingoism. 

Patriotism is not preaching a selfish and nar- 
row Americanism. 

Patriotism is not making a noise on the Fourth 
of July. 

Patriotism is not proud of mere material pros- 
perity. | 

Patriotism is not boastful of American supe- 
riority. 

Patriotism is not canonizing dead heroes and 
statesmen. 

Patriotism is not pandering to class prejudice 
and passion. 

Patriotism recognizes that we are traitors to 
the State unless we endeavor to the best of our 
understanding to exercise our suffrage for good 
men, good laws, and good government. 

Patriotism recognizes that only ‘‘Righteous- 
ness exalteth a people.’’ 

Patriotism is hearing the eall of God and fol- 
lowing the providential guidance of God amid 
the perplexing problems of our present day. 

Patriotism is allegiance to the teachings of 
Jesus Christ, which alone can make our nation 
secure and great. 

Patriotism is carrying our religious loyalty 
into all the practical affairs of government, that 
the worse elements that would bring danger to 
our national safety may be overcome. 


218 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


‘¢O beautiful for patriot dream 
That sees beyond the years 
Thine alabaster cities gleam, 
Undimmed by human tears! 
America! America! 
God shed his grace on thee, . 
And crown thy good with brotherhood 
From sea to shining sea.’’ 





CHAPTER X 
THE NEW CRUSADE (Concluded) 
VI 


SincE no nation can any longer live within it- 
self and for itself, there follows the Crusade for 
Internationalism. 

A large part of our ills has come from isola- 
tion, individualism, and provincialism. The bug- 
bear of ‘‘entangling alliances’’ is no longer per- 
tinent. When Washington spoke these words 
there were a few thousand people along the At- 
lantic coast. He had no conception of 100,000,- 
000 people, with all the complex relationships of 
our modern world. Washington has been dead 
over a century, and if he should wake up in the 
United States to-day he would not know where 
he was. We have passed from stagecoaches to 
express trains, telephones, wireless telegraphy, 
submarines, and airships. There are guns that 
shoot farther than a man could ride in a day in 
Washington’s time. Washington lived at least 
a twenty-days’ voyage from Hurope, while we 
are only twenty-four hours’ distant, and London 
can be reached by cable or wireless in a few 


seconds. 
219 


220 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Extreme nationalism gives rise to a dangerous 
provincial patriotism. There is no place in the 
heart of a true patriot for the popular oratori- 
eal motto, ‘‘My country, right or wrong.’’ Our 
own constitution was nothing more originally 
than a league of independent States conscious of 
their weakness if standing apart. 

The Church must make her influence felt, for 
the question of international relationship is not 
only a political but a brotherhood question. 

A recent writer says: ‘‘If ever there was a 
time when the nations of the earth should pre- 
pare for peace instead of for war, now is the 
time. The whole question of disarmament prac- 
tically lies in the hands of the two great Protes- 
tant, Christian nations, Great Britain and the 
United States. If they would agree to disarm, 
Japan would also, and the whole matter would be 
practically settled, for there are no other navies 
worth considering left. The cost of standing 
armies through the years has been infinitely more 
than the cost of education. To spend forty mil- 
lion dollars for a new battleship which can be 
blown out of the water by a flying machine that 
hardly costs forty thousand dollars is a piece 
of financial folly, to say nothing more. What 
this world wants to-day is a league of nations 
that will comprise all the governments, great and 
small, an international court, and just enough of 
police force on land and sea, supported by all the 





THE NEW CRUSADE 221 


signatory governments to the league, to enforce 
the decisions of the court. All this could easily 
be accomplished if our lawmakers at Washing- 
ton had the Christian viewpoint instead of the 
viewpoint of the party politician. Petty politics 
have all but destroyed the respect of the nations 
for the United States.’’ 

An international alliance for the preservation 
of world order is the goal toward which the world 
is inevitably moving, and political standpatters 
and reactionaries may delay, but they cannot de- 
feat, the movement. It is the clear call of Christ. 
**In the years that have been I have bound man closer to man 

And closer woman to woman; 

And the stranger hath seen in a stranger his brother at last 
And a sister in eyes that were strange. 

In the years that shall be I will bind me nation to nation 
And shore unto shore, saith our God. 

Lo, I am the burster of bonds and the breaker of barriers; 

I am he that shall free, saith the Lord. 


For the lingering battle, the contest of ages is ending, 
And victory followeth me.?’ 


Vil 


Linked with the Crusade for Internationalism 
is the Crusade for World Peace. 

There are some considerations which should 
meet with response from reasonable people. 
There are those who would muddy the stream 
of clear thinking. The issue is not between a 
theoretic pacifism and increased military pre- 


222 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


paredness. The question is, in this day of peace 
with the wisdom that should come from experi- 
ence, what should be our attitude toward war 
and what should be our efforts toward universal 
peace? 

1. War must be stripped of its false glory. It 
must be seen in its undisguised hideousness and 
horror. We must cease to idealize war. Senti- 
mental women who think that a brass button on 
a bright uniform is perfectly lovely should see 
the torn uniform and the mangled body and the 
brass buttons soiled with mud and stained with 
blood. 

We must not forget the bitter lessons of the 
past. Lloyd George recently said: ‘‘The old 
generation is passing away, and a new genera- 
tion that knows nothing of the terror and dis- 
comfort of the Great War will be drenched by 
historians, novelists, and artists with a descrip- 
tion of fe glories.’’ 

2. The double standard of morality as ap- 
plied to nations and individuals must be con- 
demned. Why should individuals be held to a 
tribunal of justice for settlement of disputes, 
while nations are held to be justifiable in re- 
sorting to uncontrolled passion and violence? 

The nation that refuses to abide by the inter- 
national law should be treated by the other na- 
tions as a policeman would deal with an obstrep- 
erous individual. 





THE NEW CRUSADE 223 


3. War must not be regarded as a permanent 
institution. There has always existed the rigidly 
conservative type who regards any existent evil 
as forever fixed. It was true in the case of duel- 
ing, polygamy, slavery, and piracy. It is the 
blackest pessimism to regard war as perma- 
nently intrenched in human society. 

When a shipment of American boys killed in 
the World War was unloaded on the Hoboken 
pier, President Harding looked out over liter- 
ally acres of boxes containing all that remained 
of potential builders of civilization, and said with 
deep feeling: ‘‘This must not be again.”’ 

The Methodist Episcopal Church sent out this 
notable utterance: ‘‘Millions of our fellow men 
have died heroically in ‘a war to end war.’ What 
they undertook, we must finish by methods of 
peace. War is not inevitable. It is the supreme 
enemy of mankind. Its futility is beyond ques- 
tion. Its continuance is the suicide of civiliza- 
tion. We are determined to outlaw the whole 
war system. 

‘‘The patriotism of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church has never been challenged. Neither our 
motives nor our loyalty must be impugned when 
we insist on the fulfillment of pledges made to 
the dead and assert our Christian ideals for the 
living. Governments which ignore the Chris- 
tian conscience of men in time of peace cannot 
justly claim the lives of men in time of war. 


224 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


Secret diplomacy and political partisanship must 
not draw men into the dilemma of deciding be- 
tween support of country and loyalty to Christ. 

‘‘The world is now open to a crusade for 
peace. War-weary nations everywhere are 
eagerly waiting. America must lead the way. 
Our nation and our Church can do now what we 
may never be able to do again.’’ 

4, The race of military preparedness does not 
stop war. America should lead the way to an 
international agreement, which gives notice to 
any belligerent nation that when it breaks forth 
into violence it encounters the opposition of the 
other nations combined. When nations prepare 
for war, they will precipitate war. 

5. The people should demand of their govern- 
ment that questions in dispute must be settled 
by some other method than the appeal to the bru- 
tality of war. It is estimated that fewer than 
twenty men brought on the late war. The blun- 
dering leaders who bring on war always manage 
to keep their own hides whole. 

6. War is the chief handicap to the progress 
of humanity. War is the devouring monster that 
swallows up ninety-three cents out of every dol- 
lar of taxation. The money spent on war would 
build churches and schoolhouses in reach of 
every human being, turn the waste places of the 
earth into a garden, and relieve a large part of 
the woes that afflict mankind. 





THE NEW CRUSADE 229 


7. Another world war would mean universal 
carnage and destruction. It would involve the 
wholesale slaughter of armies and cities. Inven- 
tions such as poison gas, devices for the spread 
of disease germs, and the ‘‘death ray”’ reveal 
very plainly that the future holds in store noth- 
ing less than the complete downfall of civiliza- 
tion and the suicide of humanity, unless the 
forces of Christianity can overtake and bring un- 
der rational and moral control the conscienceless 
materialism that stalks threateningly among the 
nations in this very hour. 

If an international agreement fails, then 
please remember that your military prepared- 
ness cannot proceed along the old methods. The 
main line of preparation would necessarily be 
the construction of huge aéroplanes and the pro- 
duction of poisonous gases. After the inven- 
tion of gunpowder, there were doubtless medie- 
val knights who wanted to keep on fighting the 
old way, but after smelling gunpowder a few 
times they decided to change their method. 

8. The sane Christian course for the United 
States to pursue is to join the other nations in 
laying a foundation for enduring peace. The 
old motto, as false as it is old, ‘‘In time of peace 
prepare for war,’’ must be changed to ‘‘In time 
of peace prepare for peace.’? When the war 
clouds gather it will be too late to think clearly 
and rationally. It is the supreme duty of the 


226 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


United States to think in terms of peace, to hold 
forth the ideal of peace, and to lead the nations 
out of the hellish war system. 

It is nothing short of criminal to talk war 
unless our government does the utmost to ac- 
complish this high mission and then fails. 

9. In our Crusade for Peace we have the en- 
couragement of a powerful peace sentiment 
which is many times stronger than ever before. 
Wherever the Church has spoken as a group, it 
has been against the military mania. The Fed- 
eral Council of Churches makes a statement of 
the ‘‘Creed for Believers in a Warless World’’: 


WE BELIEVE in a sweeping reduction of armaments. 

WE BELIEVE in international law, courts of justice, and 
boards of arbitration. 

WE BELIEVE in a world-wide association of nations for 
world peace. 

WE BELIEVE that Christian patriotism demands the prac- 
tice of good will between nations. 

WE BELIEVE that nations no less than individuals are sub- 
ject to God’s immutable moral laws. 

WE BELIEVE that nations that are Christian have special 
international obligations. 

WE BELIEVE in a warless world and dedicate ourselves to 
its achievement. 


‘‘Let friendly flags be far unfurled, 
Be hushed the quarrel of the world. 
God’s leaders can no more afford 
The pagan swagger with the sword. 
War attitudes but anger men, 

And make them burn to fight again. 





THE NEW CRUSADE 227 


By love and truth must men grow great, 
And live to put war. out of date. 

Let armaments dissolve with rust, 

And let mad sabers waste in dust. 

White hands of peace in this new day 
Must wash the stains of war away.’’ 


VIII 


The crowning consummation of all the aspir- 
ing and striving of the Christian heart for a true 
world order is the Crusade for the Kingdom of 
God on Earth. 

The Kingdom of God is the great term which 
Jesus uses more than any other. He uses it 
eight times in the Sermon on the Mount and one 
hundred and twelve times in the four gospels. 
The larger number of the parables are parables 
of the kingdom. He commissioned the twelve 
and seventy to preach the gospel of the kingdom. 
It was the first and last note of his own preach- 
ing. 

‘<By the kingdom of God is meant an ideal so- 
cial order in which the relation of men to God 
is that of sons, and to each other that of 
brothers. ”’ 

There are some three distinct errors as re- 
gards the kingdom: 

1. It has been assumed by the strict individu- 
alist that the kingdom of God is identical with 
the heaven of the future. The goal of the gospel 


228 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


is accomplished when the individual soul makes 
his way through this present evil world into the 
sinless future realm. 

2. The error that the kingdom is identical with 
the visible Church is the tenet of the Roman 
Catholic Church. The Roman papacy, with a 
political conception of the kingdom, accom- 
plished for more than one thousand years some 
of the wonders of history. Pope Gregory VII 
compels Henry IV of Germany to stand outside 
the palace at Canossa for three days in the cold 
of January in penitential garb, beseeching audi- 
ence of the Pope. Frederick I, the stalwart Ger- 
man emperor, holds the stirrup of Pope Adrian 
IV at Rome and prostrates himself on the stone 
pavement at Venice before Pope Alexander ITI. 
Pope Innocent III brings Philip Augustus of 
France to subjection and compels King John of 
England to surrender his crown and dominions. 
Frederick II of Germany dies heartbroken un- 
der the shadow of a defeat inflicted by Pope In- 
nocent IV. 

This theory of the identity of a visible Church 
with the kingdom of God has received too many 
hard blows to survive in its pristine strength, 
and the voice of the Vatican is now the echo of 
an echo. 

3. The third error is that the kingdom of God 
is the visible reign of Christ in millennial glory. 
It is a Jewish survival based on apocalyptic 


‘ a a 
———————— - SS. = 


Le en Se A ee eee 


ene a Pin tl Na ll 
ET At ae anc ee en a ae 


THE NEW CRUSADE 229 


literature. Jesus tells us nothing of a thousand 
years’ visible reign of Christ on earth. 

The favorite book of Adventism is Revelation, 
along with some Old Testament prophecies, and 
their marvelous interpretation of these Scrip- 


tures is mixed in one jumble. 
A literal passage which does not suit their 


purpose they make figurative, and a figurative 
passage they will make literal if thereby it suits 
their purpose better. They bewail the lack of 
spirituality of both the common saint and the 
Biblical scholar who cannot exclaim ‘‘erystal’’ 
when they propound their theory. 

Prof. Shirley Jackson Case says: ‘‘The quin- 
tessence of religion is made to consist in assent 
to the fanciful millennial program, and those 
Christians who refuse such assent are assigned 
to the outer court. To inaugurate any program 
of social betterment or to set the Church as a 
whole upon an upward course would be to thwart 
the divine purpose and to delay the coming of 
Christ. Both the world and the Church must 
grow constantly worse in order to meet premil- 
lennial ideals.’’ 

There is the depreciation of all efforts for 
world peace through a league of nations. The 
success of peace plans would contradict their 
theory; therefore they can only prophesy war, 
if not hope for it, until the second advent. One 
writer says: ‘‘We talk of disarmament, but we 


230 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


all know that it is not coming.’’ All our present 
peace plans will end in the most awful wars and 
conflicts the old world ever saw. 

The missionary enterprise is to be carried on, 
but not with the expectation that the world is 
to be won for Christ. Dr. Haldeman, in the Sun- 
day School Times, says: ‘‘The rallying ery of 
Protestantism, ‘the world for Christ,’ is a false 
slogan.’’ Another periodical says: ‘‘We are 
not to preach the gospel of the kingdom, or even 
to pray for its extension, for the kingdom can- 
not even commence until the Lord comes.’’ 

Compared with premillennialists, Schopen- 
hauer is a radiant optimist. In opposition to 
such hopelessness we must be on our guard 
against an easy-going optimism. During the 
persecution of Jews in Russia some years ago, 
when hundreds were being slain, it was reported 
in the daily papers that Andrew Carnegie sent 
them a telegram saying, ‘‘Do not be discouraged. 
Under the law of evolution we must steadily, 
though slowly, march upward, and finally reach 
the true conception of the brotherhood of man.”’ 
This message, it is needless to say, was not very 
comforting. 

The only way to meet the deepest need of the 
human heart at all times and especially in times 
of great calamity, when the catastrophic idea 
makes such an appeal to the popular imagina- 
tion, is to proclaim a gospel so full of vitality 


THE NEW CRUSADE 231 


and assurance and power that men will no longer 
feel the need of a cataclysmic method. 

Jesus expected his gospel to succeed through 
the invisible spiritual agencies that are opera- 
tive in the world. The program of Jesus is in 
the Great Commission, which the Premillennial- 
ists are very shy about quoting: ‘‘All power 
is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye 
therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, 
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching 
them to observe all things whatsoever I have 
commanded you; and lo, I am with you alway, 
even unto the end of the world.’’ 

The gospel is a revelation of the saving power 
of God as revealed in Christ for all human re- 
lations. It is not pessimistic about humanity. 
It knows that the world, despite sinful men, is 
becoming better, because it is growing more 
loyal to justice and love. It looks across the 
range of history from the Stone Age to the pres- 
ent world order and sees satisfactory progress 
toward the ideals of Jesus Christ. Those who 
thus use the Bible believe that the moral princi- 
ples of Jesus are actually to be operative in his- 
tory because of God’s working in Christian men 
living in the Spirit of Jesus. They make central 
the teachings of Jesus as to God and morals 
rather than views of pre-Christian Judaism. 
They believe the kingdom of God will come by 


239 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


the spiritual transformation of human society, 
and that it is already coming. Such a use of the 
Scripture does not separate Christianity from 
the growing knowledge of the universe and so- 
ciety given by science. In the place of diagrams 
and ingenious fulfillments of prophecy, it sees 
a universe filled with a God of law and love. 

Dr. W. N. Clarke says: ‘‘The kingdom of God 
that was really at hand when Jesus appeared has 
been developed in the existing order of this 
world’s life. At present we can read the past 
plainly enough to see that this was the only right 
and possible method. There was nothing in the 
work of Jesus that tended to bring upon the 
world a miraculous catastrophe, and nothing in 
his influence for good that would have had its 
characteristic promotion in such an event. From 
the result it does not appear that he came to 
produce new heavens and a new earth, except as 
any place is new wherein dwells righteousness. 
In the normal successions of human history his 
work was wrought out in accordance with its 
nature. The appropriate result of a work like 
his was the long unfolding of the grace of God 
in the world. The kingdom of God that came 
in with Jesus was the practical dominion of God 
in the life that men live together—a kingdom 
that came, and is still coming, and has yet to 
come.’? 

Dr. H. C. King writes: ‘‘This literalistic pre- 


THE NEW CRUSADE 233 


millennialism is contrary to the whole spirit of 
the teaching of Christ, for it reveals an essen- 
tially atheistic disbelief in spiritual forces and 
repudiation of them, yielding to a temptation 
which Christ himself rejected in the wilderness 
struggle. Moreover, it practically sets aside the 
whole social aspect of the kingdom of God, and 
makes meaningless Christ’s prayer, ‘Thy king- 
dom come, Thy will be done on earth ..,’”’ 

In the darkest hour that ever cast its shadow 
on our sinful earth Jesus said: ‘‘This gospel 
of the kingdom shall be preached in all the 
world.’? To lose the spirit of hope is to lose 
the Spirit of Christ. He staked everything on 
the universality of his kingdom. This was the 
occasion of his death. The Jews were infuriated 
at the thought of a universal gospel. A univer- 
sal gospel is made sacred by the baptism of his 
blood. 

The man who opposes the universality of his 
kingdom arrays himself on the side of the Jews 
against Christ, and on the side of both Jews 
and pagans against the early Church. 

Tradition tells us that two Roman emperors 
were willing to admit the image of the Christ in 
the pantheon as the equal of other gods. But 
the Christians would have no partial honor be- 
stowed upon their Lord. Jesus tolerates no 
rival authority in religion. His authority is to 
be all-exclusive and his kingdom is to be all-in- 


234 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


elusive. There can be but one sun in the heavens. 
Our Lord shall not see of the travail of his soul 
and be satisfied until, with liberal hands and with 
devoted lives, the Christian Church makes pos- 
sible the kingdom of God on earth. 


‘Jesus shall reign where’er the sun 
Does his successive journeys run; 
His kingdom spread from shore to shore, 
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.’’ 


The declaration of Prof. C. A. Ellwood is in 
harmony with the words of this old hymn and 
with the purpose of Jesus. ‘‘Christianity is an 
endeavor to establish a world-wide, ideal human 
society in which justice and good will shall be 
realized upon a religious basis.’’ 

It is Jesus Christ for the world or nothing. 

Men will not leave him for a lower form of re- 
ligion and they will never have a chance for a 
higher form. To turn away from Christ is to 
turn away from the hope of life. Even Renan 
Says: ‘‘Whatever may be the surprises of the 
future, Jesus will never be surpassed.’’ 

There can be no higher law than the law of 
love. 

There can be no higher truth than the Father- 
hood of God. There can be no more universal 
principle than the brotherhood of man. There 
can be no higher righteousness than the com- 
plete inner and outer transformation of life that 
belongs to the Christian faith. 


THE NEW CRUSADE 235 


There can be no higher exemplification of the 
brotherhood of man than the example of Christ. 

There can be no stronger power for righteous- 
ness than the power that comes from an obedient 
relationship to Jesus Christ. 

Since the Christian faith is the most valuable 
possession of a human life, every high motive 
that belongs to the Christian spirit impels us to 
share the priceless treasure, to share our best 
with those who are poor without it. 

This is a day when we ought to be ashamed to 
take a provincial view of life. The universaliz- 
ing of Christianity is the one work that clearly 
rests upon the conception of the brotherhood of 
all men in Christ, of whatever land and clime. 
Lord Bryce has said: ‘‘The one sure hope for 
a permanent foundation of world peace lies in 
the expansion throughout the world of the prin- 
ciples of the Christian gospel.”’ 

All the centuries circle around Jesus Christ, 
and unto him all nations, tribes, and peoples 
shall finally come. It is God’s decree that every 
knee shall bow to him, and every tongue confess 
that he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 

The glorious crusade before the Christian 
Church is the Crusade for World Christianity. 

We are at first startled when our attention is 
called to the fact of the comparatively small 
amount of the teaching of Jesus which has to 
do with immortality and heaven and we are sur- 


236 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


prised to discover that he has more than twice 
as much to say about the earth as he has to say 
about heaven. What Jesus does say about these 
eternal realities is sufficient and he has no dis- 
position to minimize them, but his wisdom in 
placing emphasis on the kingdom of God on 
earth is justified, when we see how the Church 
has been prone to minimize it. 

We have actually taken the inspired forecast 
of the kingdom of God on earth and transferred 
it by false interpretation to heaven. The 
prophet of Patmos sees a new order on a new 
earth. ‘‘And I John saw the holy city, new Jeru- 
salem, coming down from God out of heaven. 

pie and I heard a great voice out of heaven 
saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with 
men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall 
be ie people, and God himself shall be with 
them, and be their God.”’ 

The immortal spirits of the saints in light 
must be thrilled with a new rapture at every 
triumph of the kingdom of God on earth; and 
whether or not the new earth will at last be the 
habitation of all the redeemed spirits, yet heaven 
will be more glorious when the kingdom of God 
is fully set up on the new earth. 


‘<Then shall all men’s good 
Be each man’s rule, and universal Peace 
Lie like a shaft of light across the land.’’ 


' ee | 
OS ee oe 2 


THE NEW CRUSADE 237 


Toward this realization we are not to exercise 
an easy-going optimism with a credulity that be- 
lieves in the omnipotence of mere processes and 
drifts and tendencies, but with hearts strength- 
ened by the hope of Christ we are to dedicate 
to him the unreserved devotion and sacrificial 
loyalty of our lives. When we reckon with the 
greed and selfishness of men with its harvest of 
wretchedness and hate, we can but think of our 
own generation as ‘‘the ancients of the earth and 
in the morning of the times.’’ 

But there is the abiding hopefulness of the 
gospel. This hope is to persist against all dis- 
couragement and to rejoice in the better day that 
is coming to the world. ‘We cannot say how far, 
but somewhere in the far future our faith tells 
us that this crowning day is coming. 

With a faith in the unfailing mission of Jesus 
Christ, we shall find ourselves in accord with the 
prophecy of Prof. John Fiske: ‘‘The future is 
lighted for us with the radiant colors of hope. 
Strife and sorrow shall disappear. Peace and 
love shall reign supreme. The dream of poets, 
the lesson of priest and prophet, the inspiration 
of the great musician, is confirmed in the light 
of modern knowledge; and as we gird ourselves 
up for the work of life, we may look forward to 
the time when in the truest sense the kingdoms 
of this world shall become the kingdom of Christ, 


238 PRINCIPLES OF JESUS 


and he shall reign forever and ever, King of 
Kings and Lord of Lords.’’ 

There yet remain many steep ascents through 
peril, toil, and pain, but some glad day a ‘re- 
deemed humanity, the perfect consummation of 
the kingdom of God on earth, will be the reward 
of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 


pie MeN 
fa (ais var 
Ast te i oe oN 
Ge Rr 
ee pe 
4 ae 4 
Pao 


win 
y 


an. 
Us ita, 
Uy ean 


i : his 


— 





ety we 

i q iS We 
Vein, 
ty | 


Mee ser ytne 
f D ea oe 


ij 





} 
i 


‘ea 
PAV 5 
Abe Ne 
in &. 
5, t0) 
ay 


7 


’ 


J) Seach 





Date Due 


= © 
AD 


<9 79 


he) 
fi a BRE ab) 

bh A We fo 
Vite Sean 


sa 


be, 7 eee f 


sehey 


Sk 





| 


- " 
— 
= —— 





